GAO study shows some companies inflated veteran employment to engage in fraud.
Beginning with the book by B. G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley, there has been an ongoing effort by many dedicated people to unmask those masquerading both as veterans and in some cases actual veterans who have inflated their military record, awarding themselves medals that were never earned and granting promotions that never happened.
That effort eventually resulted in the passage of the Stolen Valor Act of 2005 making many of these actions a federal misdemeanor. This blog led the effort to have Rick Strandlof aka Rick Duncan charged in federal court in Colorado for just such actions.
An AP story on a recent GAO report published widely here and here among other places illustrates many more cases of stolen valor except in these cases not only a the valor being stolen but business and income due to veteran-owned business is being stolen.
Certain set-aside and sole source contracts are available for service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses in doing business with the federal government. According to the GAO report though, in many cases no one is performing the checks necessary to verify that the company applying for these set-aside and sole-source contracts is actually owned and controlled by a service-disabled veteran. There is disagreement among the various government entities as to who is responsible for that verification but there appears to be almost no punishment for a company that is found to be in violation of the requirements.
Just one example from the GAO report; A Las Vegas firm falsely claimed it was a veteran-owned small business to compete for $200 million in contracting work to maintain trailers for Katrina victims. After a competitor protested, the misrepresentation was uncovered and work was stopped, but the company had already received $7.5 million. The firm received no other punishments.
Our lawmakers took up the cause when legislation was needed to prevent phony veterans from wearing medals and decorations that were never earned. It appears that fraud legislation should provide punishment for the cases outlined in the GAO report but without an in-depth examination of the law, maybe not. If not, then our lawmakers need to extend their look at stolen valor to include these cases.
This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 0715 and is filed under Uncategorized, the burner. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Indeed. I have worked with VA officials who speak proudly of, and work very hard to increase, efforts to steer business to deserving small businesses owned by disbaled veterans. In fact, they consider it one of the many areas where they can help veterans. To see people using a system for fraud that cheats the truly deserving people is disgusting.
The CEO of these companies who thieve the benefits through fraud which are intended to assist the Veteran Community should be gaoedl. They are thieves and know exactly what they are doing. These companies are no better then the thief who breaks in during the night, steals, then comes into work the next day paying lip service to the distraught owner about being broken into.