[Complaint Against Contract Award by HUD Grantee]

A firm complained against a contract award by the city of Charleston, South Carolina, to another firm under a Department of Housing and Urban Development grant. The city rejected the protester's bid for failure to comply with minority business enterprise (MBE) provisions in the solicitation. The protester contended that: (1) its failure to certify that it would meet the MBE requirements was inadvertent and did not render the bid nonresponsive; (2) since the solicitation allowed the city to make determinations relevant to MBE compliance after bid opening, the MBE requirement related to bidder responsibility rather than responsiveness; and (3) the MBE provision was a violation of the protester's rights and constituted discrimination based on race. GAO held that: (1) the solicitation required bidders to certify their intent to comply with the MBE provisions as a condition of responsiveness and that merely signing the bid did not express the necessary commitment to compliance; and (2) the part of the protest alleging racial discrimination was untimely filed because it related to the validity of the solicitation specifications. Accordingly, the complaint was denied in part and dismissed in part.