“Huh? How could that have happened? Oh well” seems to be the only response by the Small Business Administration officials. Just taxpayer money, that’s all.
Private military contractor Blackwater and its affiliates may have wrongly received more than $100 million in contracts that were supposed to be set aside for small businesses, according to an inspector general’s report released today.
At issue was a November 2006 determination by the Small Business Administration that a Blackwater affiliate, Presidential Airways, was a small business with less than 1,500 employees.
Blackwater contended, and the agency agreed, that its more than 1,000 workers providing security for the State Department overseas were not employees, but independent contractors. That made the company appear smaller on paper than it actually is.
Corruption, corruption, and more corruption. Kudos to Henry Waxman for discovering (PDF) and publicizing the erroneously awarded contract.
Jeremy Scahill is going to have to update his book again.