Petaluma, Calif.- House Small Business Committee Chairwoman, Nydia Velázquez has called a hearing entitled, “Expanding Small Businesses' Access to federal Contracts,” for Thursday, April 19 at 10 a.m. The committee will hear testimony from the Head of Government Contracting and Business Development, Paul Hsu as well as Emily Murphy, former Chief Acquisitions Officer for the General Services Administration and current employee of private-sector law firm Miller and Chevalier LLP of Washington, according to a government source.

 

 As early as 2002, the General Accounting Office found large businesses were receiving billions in federal small business contracts. The SBA’s Office of Advocacy found corporations such as Hewlett-Packard, Northrop-Grumman, Titan Industries, Raytheon and Burhmann, a Dutch firm with 18,000 employees, had obtained billions in small business procurement contracts. The report concluded “vendor deception” was one of the reasons for the dramatic abuses.

 

There have been 14 federal investigations that have found fraud, vendor deception and mismanagement as key reasons for the diversion of small business contracts to large companies. The SBA Office of Inspector General referred to the diversion of federal small business contracts to large businesses as, “One of the most important challenges facing the Small Business Administration and entire Federal government today…”

 

“I’m glad the house is finally having hearings on this issue, but I am a little concerned that no one has been called to testify who represents small business doing business with the government,” President of the American Small Business League, Lloyd Chapman said. “I believe Mrs. Murphy’s firms represents some of the Fortune 1000 firms that have been receiving billions in federal small business contracts. I don’t see why her input would be helpful. I certainly hope that Representative Velázquez asks Mr. Hsu why the SBA has adopted a policy that will allow the government to report awards to fortune 1000 firms as small business contracts through the year 2012.”