Defense & Intelligence Policy, Business and Technology

Why contracting challenges put VA on the ‘High-Risk’ list

Federal Times: The Department of Veterans Affairs has not updated some of its purchasing regulations since 2008, and the resulting problems created for contracting officers at the agency have caused the Government Accountability Office to designate the problem a high-risk area for 2019.

“The VA acquisition is a huge part of the mission over at the Department of Veterans Affairs. They do about $26 billion in procurements each year, and tens of thousands of procurement actions. Since 2015, we’ve had over 31 recommendations that we’ve done there and, unfortunately, 21 of those remain open, and so the high-risk designation centers on a couple of longstanding weaknesses that they’ve had in the acquisition area,” said Chris Mihm, managing director of the GAO Strategic Issues Team, in an agency podcast.

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