Objective
Our objective was to determine whether the Navy and Marine Corps’ information technology (IT) contracts issued without competition were properly justified.
We announced this audit in anticipation of the pending Fiscal Year 2015 National Defense Authorization Act that requires the DoD Inspector General to review DoD noncompetitive IT contracts to determine whether they were properly justified as sole source and to provide a briefing on the results to the House Armed Services Committee by March 1, 2015. This report is the first in a series of audit reports on DoD IT contracts awarded without competition.
Finding
Navy and Marine Corps contracting personnel justified the use of other than full and open competition for all 66 contracts reviewed, with a value (including options) of about $218.4 million. For the 34 sole-source contracts with a value (including options) of about $151.5 million, Navy and Marine Corps contracting personnel generally:
- complied with Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.3032, “Content,” requirements in the justification and approval for other than full and open competition;
- appropriately applied the authority cited;
- obtained approval from the proper personnel before contract award;
- documented compliance with Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 10, “Market Research;” and
- complied with synopsis requirements in Federal Acquisition Regulation Subpart 5.2, “Synopses of Proposed Contract Actions” in the contract files to support sole-source determinations.
In addition, Navy and Marine Corps contracting personnel used a valid statutory requirement when awarding the other 32 contracts with a value (including options) of about $66.9 million.
Management Comments
We provided a discussion draft to Navy and Marine Corps officials on December 1, 2014. We considered management comments on a discussion draft of this report when preparing the final report.