PETALUMA, CA -- (Marketwired) --05/15/14 -- According to the American Small Business League, newly appointedSmall Business Administration (SBA) head Maria Contreras-Sweet is scheduled tospeak in Washington on Thursday May 15th and Friday May 16th as part ofNational Small Business Week.

Contreras-Sweet will be speakingat the following events Thursday and Friday:

US Chamber of Commerce
1615 H St NW
Washington, DC 20062
Thursday 3:00-8:00pm

FHI360 Conference Center
1825 Connecticut Ave NW - 8th Floor
Washington, DC 20009
Friday 6:45am-2:45pm

Administrator Contreras-Sweet mayhave to face some tough questions on the continuing federal investigative reports and media reports thathave found hundreds of billions of dollars in federal small business contractsthat have been knowingly diverted to Fortune 500 firms.

American Express recentlyrecognized Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet as one of the four most "ardent advocates"for small businesses in America along with American Small Business LeaguePresident Lloyd Chapman. Chapman stated, "I was shocked to hear thatAdministrator Contreras-Sweet is speaking at the US Chamber of Commerce. The USChamber has been lobbying to close the SBA and end all federal small businessprograms since Ronald Reagan was President. The US Chamber is certainly nofriend of mine as anyone can see by watching the debate between their spokesmanand myself on CNBC."

Federal investigators have found Fortune 500 firms to be the actual recipientof billions of dollars in federal small business contracts every year since2002. The most recent data from the Federal Procurement Data System indicatesthat 175 Fortune 500 firmsreceived federal small business contracts last year and 235 from the previous year.

The SBA Office of InspectorGeneral headed by Obama appointee Peg Gustafson, has named the diversion offederal small business contracts to large corporations as the number one problem at the SBA every year forthe last six years.

After investigating the SBA, theGovernment Accountability Office (GAO) essentially accused senior SBAexecutives of encouraging fraud when they released Report 10-108 that stated, "By failing to hold firmsaccountable, SBA and contracting agencies have sent a message to thecontracting community that there is no punishment or consequences forcommitting fraud."

A recent legal opinion byProfessor Charles Tiefer, one of the nation's leading experts on federalcontracting law, found that legitimate small business might have been fraudulently cheated out of over one trilliondollars.

In what appears to be anescalation in the SBA's campaign to limit media coverage of the well-documentedfraud and abuse in federal small business contracting programs, former Directorof Corporate Communications for the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, retiredNaval Commander Terry Sutherland took control of the SBA Press Office in Aprilof 2013. Mr. Sutherland has repeatedly declined to comment on the abuses.

The American Small Business League(ASBL) predicts the SBA policy of diverting billions of dollarsin federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms will continue underAdministrator Contreras-Sweet's leadership.

Question for the SBA can bedirected to SBA spokesman Terry Sutherland
(202) 205-6919 | terrence.sutherland@sba.gov| www.terrysutherlandinfo.org