Checchi and Company Consulting, Inc.

A firm protested a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) contract for technical assistance and training to the government of El Salvador, contending that USAID's evaluation and exclusion of the protester's proposal from the competition and evaluation of the awardee's proposal and its selection for award were unreasonable and inconsistent with the terms of the solicitation, and that USAID failed to conduct meaningful discussions. GAO found that USAID (1) did not reasonably evaluate the protester's oral presentation, (2) did not act in accordance with the terms of the solicitation, and (3) failed to conduct meaningful discussions. Accordingly, the protest was sustained, and GAO recommended that USAID: (1) review the terms of the solicitation, and should the agency still want to refrain from considering the protester's phase I written proposals during consideration of the firm's phase II discussions and oral presentations, it should amend the solicitation accordingly; (2) review and amend the solicitation to provide for the consideration of cost and price as a significant evaluation factor, to state the phase III evaluation factors, and to state the U.S. citizenship requirement for the contract; (3) request and evaluate proposals in a manner consistent with the solicitation as amended, and make a new source selection decision; (4) terminate the contract with the current awardee if a proposal other than the awardee's is selected for the contract; and (5) reimburse the protester reasonable costs of filing and pursuing the protest.