Press Release
Small Business Administration Forced to Release Fraudulent Contracting Data
September 24, 2013
The Small Business Administration (SBA) has been forced to release more evidence of rampant fraud at the SBA under the leadership of Karen Mills. The information shows that between 2012 and 2013, small business contracts had been diverted to 235 Fortune 500 firms.
The American Small Business League (ASBL) requested the names of all the firms the SBA had included in the $89.9 billion figure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The SBA denied the request.
The SBA finally released the names of the firms after the ASBL filed an appeal and threatened further legal action if the SBA refused to comply with the FOIA request.
The information the SBA was forced to release last week proved that under the leadership of Mills, the SBA intentionally falsified the volume and percentage of federal contracts awarded to small businesses by including billions of dollars in contracts to over 230 Fortune 500 firms. No federal law allows the inclusion of Fortune 500 firms to be in any definition of a small business.
In 2012, General Dynamics, with 81,000 employees and more than $21 billion in annual revenue, received at least $215 million in small business contracts. In the same time period, Italian conglomerate Finmeccanica received $5,111,337 in U.S. small business contracts. And number 16 on the 2012 Fortune 500 list, Verizon received $38,540,761 in small business contracts in fiscal year 2012 alone.
Some of the firms the SBA included in their small business contracting statistics under the leadership of Mills were Chevron, Berkshire Hathaway, Apple, GE, AT&T, CVS, McKesson, HP, Verizon, United Health Group, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Costco, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Prudential Financial, Home Depot, Microsoft, Walgreens, Johnson & Johnson, Caterpillar, PepsiCo, Comcast, WellPoint, Amazon, Dell, Intel, Coca-Cola, CBS, Best Buy, FedEx, Sysco, Walt Disney, DuPont, Humana, Hess, Honeywell, Oracle, Delta Airlines, John Deere, Sprint, General Dynamics, DirecTV, Northrop Grumman, American Airlines, Staples, Raytheon, Nike, Xerox, Global Partners and thousands more.
The SBA inspector general has named the diversion of federal small business contracts as the number one challenge at the SBA for the last nine consecutive years.
The ASBL predicts President Obama will attempt to close the SBA under the guise of combining it with the Department of Commerce to cover up the rampant fraud at the agency. The Department of Commerce represents the interests of the very Fortune 500 firms that have been allowed to hijack federal small business contracts for over a decade.
During his presidency, Ronald Reagan tried to permanently close the SBA by combining it with the Department of Commerce.
For the latest video from the ASBL, click here.
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