An abundance of erroneous information in the Federal
Procurement Data System, currently being changed to the
“FPDS-Next Generation,” must be eliminated the General
Accounting Office has said.
In a letter to the Office of Management and Budget
(GAO-04-295R), which is trying to facilitate government
transactions with the Integrated Acquisition Environment
e-Government initiative, it said OMB should require
agencies without electronic contract writing systems to
regularly report on their progress to do so, and requested
that agencies conduct regular reviews in consultation with
GSA of their procurement data activity.
GAO said it found the use of the test program reported by
its three largest users in fiscal year 2001 was either
overstated or understated by millions of dollars, something
that was echoed in DoD’s data system, which feeds information
into FPDS.
In GAO’s 2003 review of task and delivery orders, it found
multiple orders reported as single transactions, such as
an order for $11,443,000 in FPDS that was in fact 87
transactions at or over $25,000, and that the new system,
which will rely more on machine-to-machine information
sharing rather than human input, the reliability of
information is paramount.
