Publicly Released: September 28, 2023
We are providing this management advisory to inform DoD and Army Contracting Command leadership of a review the DoD Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted of other transaction (OT) agreement W912CG-21-9-0001. The DoD awarded the OT agreement to KPMG, LLP on March 1, 2021, to develop a process for accelerating access to the monoclonal antibody treatments for high‑risk COVID-19 patients.
The OIG’s review was in response to a congressional inquiry that requested that the DoD OIG identify the DoD office that was tasked or partnered with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to solicit bids and award the OT agreement, and determine DoD and HHS roles with respect to the following actions:
- defining the government’s requirements,
- soliciting bids,
- evaluating bids,
- awarding the OT agreement,
- monitoring the program (including ongoing evaluations of whether KPMG was meeting program goals),
- reaching the decision to pause the program, and
- reaching the decision to cancel the program.
We conducted the work on this management advisory with integrity, objectivity, and independence, as required by the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency’s Quality Standards for Federal Offices of Inspector General.
While performing the review, we determined that DoD contracting officials did not maintain documentation to support that HHS conducted market research or that, during the market research, it identified three prospective contractors for white paper requests. Therefore, without the necessary documentation, we were unable to determine whether the OT agreement complied with section 2371b, title 10, United States Code or the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment OT Guide, which requires the DoD to use competitive procedures to the maximum extent practicable and to document the rationale for making Government investment decisions.
This management advisory has no direct recommendations; however, we refer to open recommendations from a previous DoD OIG audit that addresses the issues identified in this advisory.