Did the U.S. Postal Service’s lack of procurement regulations inadvertently help USPS officials carry out a $13 million bribery scheme over several years? Five Postal Service employees were indicted in May 2011 by a Detroit, MI grand jury for taking bribes and steering as much as $13 million in vehicle maintenance work to a private contractor. Could this scheme have been prevented, or caught earlier, if USPS had not abolished its procurement regulations in 2006?
Continue Reading Will $13 million bribery scandal lead the Postal Service to reissue its procurement regulations?
disagreement
Bid Protests: Postal Service Style
By David P. Hendel on
Posted in Bid Protests, Postal Service Contracting
Postal Service contractors frequently employ their own language. For example, to a postal contractor, a “highway contract” is not a contract to build a road but rather a contract to transport mail on a road. A new example of this postal-only language is something called a “disagreement.” This is the word used to describe what the rest of the government contract world would call a “protest.” The Postal Service’s internal bid protest (“disagreement”) procedures have been around now for several years, but have recently been revised, so this would be a good time to review them. …