Procurement:

Navy Competition Advocate General and ADP Vendor Complaint Handling

NSIAD-90-39BR: Published: Nov 15, 1989. Publicly Released: Nov 15, 1989.

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Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Navy's Office of the Competition Advocate General (OCAG), focusing on a comparison of its contractor complaint handling process with similar Army processes.

GAO found that: (1) OCAG had only a limited complaint recordkeeping system, while the Army had a more comprehensive system, which it used to periodically identify and address procurement management issues; (2) about half of all the complaints received alleged either unjustified restrictive or sole-source procurements; (3) the Navy revised its automatic data processing (ADP) procurement procedures to require development of competition plans for ADP procurements over $300,000; (4) of the 22 planned awards based on brand-name specifications that the Navy reviewed, it approved 13, including 5 with changes, still had 6 under review, and did not complete reviews on the other 3 for various reasons; (5) OCAG involvement in addressing vendor complaints varied in each procurement; and (6) the Office of Naval Research (ONR) did not perform advance procurement planning, which resulted in its purchase of ADP equipment on a piecemeal and noncompetitive basis.

Recommendation for Executive Action

  1. Status: Closed - Not Implemented

    Comments: The Navy concurs with the intent of this recommendation, but does not agree that additional planning is required because it believes that ONR has been in compliance with all acquisition planning requirements in place at the various points in time.

    Recommendation: The Secretary of the Navy should take steps to ensure that ONR develops and implements a long-range ADP acquisition plan.

    Agency Affected: Department of Defense: Department of the Navy

 

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