Reported by American Forces Press Service

The Defense Department has the opportunity to save billions of taxpayer dollars through acquisitions reform, but only if it grows its workforce with the right federal workers in place to oversee contracts, a senior Pentagon official said today. The department procured three million contracts in fiscal 2009, amounting to $375 billion, Shay Assad, the acting director of the department’s procurement and acquisition policy said.

It spent $372 billion in contracts last year, he said. About 53 percent of those costs, he said, go to contracted services, while 47 percent go to products, such as equipment. Agencies are now pooling their purchases, using more fixed-price contracts, having Internet-based “reverse auctions” for contracts, and paying more attention to contract management, Gordon said. The result, he said, is a drop in annual contract growth that averaged 12 percent every year between 2001 and 2008, to an average of 4 percent since then.

To improve the procurement of services, Assad said, the defense department also must expand competition, move away from longstanding “incumbent” contractors, ensure that work statements are understood, and use proper contracts. The Pentagon plans to add 20,000 federal procurement workers over the next five years, Assad said. Among other things, he said, the additional workers are needed to properly oversee contracts “from an arm’s length.” The department is making good progress, having already hired 4,600 acquisitions and procurement workers, Assad said. Many of the workers, he said, are former service members who’d used the equipment and services they will now help to procure….

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