The various acquisition organizations with the Department of Homeland Security continue to operate in a disparate manner, with oversight of acquisition activities left up to individual organizations, the Government Accountability Office has said in a House Government Reform Committee hearing on accountability and control problems with the department’s acquisitions.
Committee chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., said the hearing was needed to address a lack of accountability and control that has led to a run of acquisition “disasters” at the department, including a $104 million Transportation Security Administration contract to train airport screeners that jumped to over $700 million, airport bomb-detection machines that continually produce false alarms, billion-dollar technology contracts that have yet to provide basic IT and a telecom infrastructure for airports, as well as FEMA “fiascos” such as the millions spent on trailers for Katrina victims that were never used and are rotting in a field as well as Katrina-related purchase card abuses.
Among the problems GAO cited in its testimony are dual accountability for acquisitions between the chief procurement officer and the heads of each DHS component; a policy decision that has exempted the Coast Guard and Secret Service from the unified acquisition organization; insufficient capacity for department-wide acquisition oversight on the part of the CPO; and staffing shortages have led the procurement operations office to rely often on outside agencies for support.
Further, the procurement office lacks the internal controls needed to provide oversight of interagency contracting, according to GAO-06-1012T, though it added that the office has started to hire additional staff.
The department reported allocating nearly $17.5 billion to acquire goods and services in fiscal 2005.