Officials put temptation in front of small businesses
When a company can certify itself as a particular type of business entitled to preferential treatment, it is a temptation that is hard to resist, according to one member of Congress.
When a company can certify itself as a particular type of business entitled to preferential treatment, it is a temptation that is hard to resist, according to one member of Congress.
“How can we ask the Lord to deliver us from temptation and put this kind of temptation in front of these people?” asked Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), a senior Republican on the House Small Business Committee.
Bartlett spoke July 15 at a hearing on the millions of dollars worth of fraud in the Service-Disabled, Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) program. The temptation exists because a company could assure federal officials that it meets the requirements of the program, and the government would generally accept that as proof enough, he said.
“We should have had some pangs of conscience when we repeated the Lord’s Prayer,” Bartlett said.
In the end, “the real surprise would have been [if] there were no frauds,” he added.