you can't bid

The U.S. Agency for International Development will be conducting a limited competition to award a contract for the Economic Recovery, Reform, and Sustained Growth in Iraq.

The firms invited to bid on this effort are Abt Asociates; Bearing Point; Booz Allen, Hamilton; Carana Corporation; Chemonics; Deloitte Touche; Development Alternatives Inc.; Financial Markets International; IBM Business Consulting Services; and Nathan Associates. This notice is for informational purposes only.

No word on how much the contract is worth although USAID mention the Statement of Work will be available for viewing at their website on June 9th. Anyone else offended that once again the pre-solicitation list is filled with corporate insiders one of which is under investigation by the SEC? Ok. Innocent until proven guilty. But....James Woolsey of the Defense Policy Board had been the vice president of Booz, Allen, Hamilton. If BAH gets the contract, that will make three Defense Policy Board members with connections to firms who have directly profited from the war. (Sheehan and Shultz of Bechtel being the other two.) "That ain't right" as Chris Rock says.

Major Barbara is keeping up the heat on Halliburton over on her blog, Arms and the Man.

Black Enterprise ran a short article on the difficulties facing small businesses who hope to secure work thru government contracts. Includes useful links for small businesses.

One of the main reasons that smaller companies are having a difficult time getting contracts is because the government is increasingly bundling them, says Courtland Cox, a consultant on small business issues with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. Contract bundling occurs when an agency consolidates two or more contracts into a single contract when they are renewed.

In the past, contracts as small as $100,000 were given to individuals. But over the last decade, in an attempt to increase efficiencies, contract sizes have been regularly increasing, which prevents smaller business owners from participating. Smaller companies used to work with contract officers to gain access. But the decline in the use of contract officers has left many minority business owners out of the loop.

Florida today reports that an exiled Iraqi Kurd, Rubar Sandi, is the President of the US- Iraq Business Council. USIBC will be holding a seminar in Washington on Iraqi reconstruction in July. Representatives of USAID, the United Nations and other agencies are scheduled to be present. At the rate at which contracts are being awarded, July seems to be a little late.

Bechtel swears it's going to be giving the bulk of it's subcontracts, around 75%, to Iraqi firms Bechtel backed it up by giving Al-Bunnia Trading Company a contract for minor bridge and overpass repairs.

That's cold comfort to the thousands of foreign firms who participated in Bechtel's conferences held in Washington, London, and Kuwait.

Quote of the day:

"Look, the primarily difference -- to put it a little too simply -- between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq. The problems in both cases have some similarities but the solutions have got to be tailored to the circumstances which are very different." - Paul Wolfowitz.

All that oil and still no weapons of mass destruction.