GAO finds HUBZone program rife with fraud
Thanks to lax checks by the SBA, millions of dollars in government contracts intended for businesses in developing neighborhoods have gone instead to companies improperly participating in the HUBZone program. Do you think the SBA can turn the program around?
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I have never in the 25 years I have worked in construction seen a set aside program that was not fraught with fraud. More often it does not benefit the people it was designed to benefit, but benefits others who do not need the help. In some cases I have even seen it hurt small firms. These programs should be ended. If not the penalties should be so severe that no company in their right mind would ever consider cheating.
Is there any hope at this point and time (July 28, 2008) for a company to even become HUB Zone qualified — Legally? Our small engineering firm has been hitting its head against the wall for months trying to make this happen. We purposely chose an office located in a HUB Zone, or so the locater map indicates, and we have the right number of employees living in HUB Zones. But when we go to apply we are rejected because the system tells us NOW our office has been “reclassified” and is “NOT IN A HUB ZONE.” However, the locater map still says we are. Big frustration. Should we give up at this point?
Stop blaming Bush! Blame the utterly incompetent and retarded employees and managers at the SBA. They have been at SBA way before Bush took over from the Clinton’s.
I applied for HubZ status, totally legal, 50% Zone employees and got rejected because of a phone call by a retarded employee to the wrong company.
I appealed to no avail, so I ignored HubZ status. My company is doing extremely well thanks to hard work and no handouts.
I suggest to clean house at SBA, throw out the HubZ dept in its entirety, as a start. Then clean house at ALL other US Govt facilities.
Maybe the elimination of HubZ can be used to shake up the individual employees at ALL US Govt facilities.
I don’t think it’s all the Bush Admin’s fault. The SBA as a whole is overloaded with beauracracy, which I see as an employee of an associated organization.
Instead of improving the HUBZone program, it should be elimnated, and the money should instead go to fund more procurement positions that can help busiensses get the contracts that are already out there. There are an abundance of them, and the problem isn’t that there aren’t opportunities for minority businesses, its that the businesses don’t have access to the opportunities out there already.
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just one more example of a completely CLUELESS person jumping on the anti-bush bandwagon with no evidence to support.