MILLER ON PROCUREMENT.

**CHAOS**

After recent events what we do seems picayune. Here are some thoughts, which may be helpful. The Clinton administration did little about Bin Laden and friends for the last eight years. This may be because their world and ours are so far apart that little more could be done. Israel has proven that these people are easily bribed.

From a procurement standpoint, you can almost predict what is next. First the Army will sole source 50,000 PCs from the schedule. They will use the National Emergency pretext. Probably invalid.

A buyer should still compete to the maximum extent possible. I once was involved in an Air Force procurement worth about $8 million.

The AF wanted to sole source IBM. GSA competed and awarded to another firm. It took about three hours. Nothing needs to be done costing $8 million in less than three hours.

Nixon when he imposed price controls allowed one agency to sole source millions in IT based on this exemption in Part 6 of the FAR. We will probably see a lot of public exigency and national emergency buys, rightfully or wrongfully. Wonderful if you get the order but what if I do? Go to court. At the FAA recently they made this mistake with their ill-fated air traffic control system.

You may remember they awarded the contract originally to IBM at a much higher price than the other bid. IBM failed to perform.

Another firm was given the contract and then FAA wanted to sole source to the prime Lockheed Martin on the assumption that only those currently working on the system could perform this new task. They lost in court.

Sole source is a decision by the procurement people that only one firm in the world can perform the task. How often is that literally true? Not often. Check out our Mono 1 on sole source.

**GSA AND THE TRUTH**

Recently I saw ads in the NCMA magazine promoting schedules by GSA. It contained a statement which is absolutely not true. It said that all schedules have already been awarded by competitive contract. Can anyone explain why GSA could be so wrong other than the normal bureaucratic desire to preserve the bureaucracy? The authority for schedules stems from the 1984 CICA law which said that schedules are competitive so long as the rules are followed. And this was when the MOLs were no higher than $500,000. The schedule program has no authority for a BOA of $15 million. Any comments anyone?

**MONEY**

Have you ever wondered which FAR prohibits revealing in the RFP how much money is available? None. It is perfectly proper. The government people often understand and they are often too suspicious that if they tell you they have $9.8 you will bid $9.8.

I have only ever seen three RFP's where the Feds had the courage to put the amount in the RFP. One was GAO, one GSA and one Army. All three worked fine.

The problem if they don't put it in is the odds are huge that the favored vendor, the incumbent vendor or the dominant vendor will get the info anyway and you won't. Have you read Andy Paxtor's book, "when the Pentagon was for sale?" It was published in 1995 and is about the infamous III wind scandal which caught a couple dozen firms and about 100 people with fines and jail terms. If you are selling to the Feds you need to read this book.