U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), Chairman of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee, today sent a letter to Maria Contreras-Sweet, Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), regarding apparent discrepancies within the recent annual procurement scorecard for awarding federal contracts to small businesses.

“Somewhere within the federal contract procurement process, American small businesses are getting cheated, and I intend to find out how and why this is happening,” said Vitter. “There are undoubtedly serious flaws within the federal procurement process that hurt small businesses, and without transparency, accountability, and cooperation from the Small Business Administration, small businesses will continue to suffer.”

In today’s letter, Vitter questions the SBA’s recent contracting procurement figures and requests that SBA produce a list of the contractors that were counted towards the small business procurement goal. Vitter’s inquiry follows reports from the SBA’s Office of Inspector General and other outside sources showing that contracts counted as going to small businesses were instead being awarded to large corporations and ineligible firms. The Small Business Act requires 23% of federal contracts be awarded to American small businesses each year.

Click here to read Vitter’s letter to Administrator Contreras-Sweet.

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