User Story: As a watchdog, I need a way of reporting anomolous data to ensure accurate reporting of spending

[HerschelC]

This aligns with the concept of crowdsourcing data quality. Many stakeholders would love to clean up the data for their own reasons across all personas.

The below is an example of search results when investigating a specific contract, SAU90014D0001.

The first screen was interesting with the recipient identified as "Miscellaneous Foreign Awardees". This is odd since the contract in question went to one entity.

Clicking on the Recipient then brings to the below screen which indicates over $2.7B awarded to "ADICE" in 2014 alone. How did we get from "Miscellaneous Foreign Awardees" to ADICE? What is ADICE? Lots of N/A's and the DUNS number can't be correct.

[TonyWaugh]

I am interested in learning whether you found anything further on this topic. I have been doing some similar research. Thanks

[ross-williford]

This comment concerns views and links on the legacy website, which is no longer live.

Here is the link to the same award discussed above on the new site: https://www.usaspending.gov/#/award/68849300

"MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN AWARDEES" is the title that goes with DUNS 123456787. It is what is called a generic DUNS, and provisions in the Federal Acquisition Regulation allow its use under very specific circumstances (typically when a vendor cannot--or cannot quickly, when expediency is an issue--register in the System for Award Management for security or other reasons). That being said, I expect it is used outside those circumstances as well. I'm not aware of its use (or misuse) ever being investigated.

The upshot: this award was given to a specific vendor, but because the generic DUNS was used, there's no way to tell through our dataset which vendor that was. Further inquiries would need to be directed to the State Department, who gave this award.

[TonyWaugh]

I came across some Household Effects (HHE) shipments that were apparently moved under code 423860, which is for transportation equipment (non vehicular) purchases. They were assigned to Miscellaneous Foreign Awardees (MFA) by local posts. I did some more research and found at least 10 posts, 8 of them in Africa, that routinely awarded HHE shipments to (MFA) under the same code. These shipments should move under the GSA ITGBL program. I have reported this with a list of the shipments to ELSO and GSA. So far ELSO cannot find any of them in the Integrated Logistics Management System reports. This may be because they were contracted under NAICS 423860. There may be a legitimate reason for how these were managed but it seems that the posts may have been circumventing the system. Regards Tony Waugh

Tony Waugh

DEWITT MOVE WORLDWIDE | DEWITTMOVE.COM 9142 Crystal River Dr., Indianapolis, IN 46240 CELL 317-373-9041 EMAIL [email protected]

By land, air or sea, THE DEWITT COMPANIES MAKE IT EASY

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From: ross-williford [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, September 3, 2019 10:26:52 PM To: fedspendingtransparency/fedspendingtransparency.github.io [email protected] Cc: Tony Waugh [email protected]; Comment [email protected] Subject: Re: [fedspendingtransparency/fedspendingtransparency.github.io] User Story: As a watchdog, I need a way of reporting anomolous data to ensure accurate reporting of spending (#149)

This comment concerns views and links on the legacy website, which is no longer live.

Here is the link to the same award discussed above on the new site: https://www.usaspending.gov/#/award/68849300https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.usaspending.gov%2f%23%2faward%2f68849300&c=E,1,aZ9CHXJrFE-y6uS_agmME276AhHeIRkc0Op0eTBJUuirZEXLiZV6oUfm-4vCJIZUFZjCzzgFLdea38cOGLveurTZIBD8a7uvzDM7OGPEvDI,&typo=1

"MISCELLANEOUS FOREIGN AWARDEES" is the title that goes with DUNS 123456787. It is what is called a generic DUNS, and provisions in the Federal Acquisition Regulation allow its use under very specific circumstances (typically when a vendor cannot--or cannot quickly, when expediency is an issue--register in the System for Award Management for security or other reasons). That being said, I expect it is used outside those circumstances as well. I'm not aware of its use (or misuse) ever being investigated.

The upshot: this award was given to a specific vendor, but because the generic DUNS was used, there's no way to tell through our dataset which vendor that was. Further inquiries would need to be directed to the State Department, who gave this award.

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[ross-williford]

Interesting background information.

There may be a legitimate reason for how these were managed but it seems that the posts may have been circumventing the system.

This certainly wouldn't surprise me. Unfortunately, not much we can do on our end to fix it (other than raise awareness of the use of MFA). Could be of interest to watchdog groups, inspectors general, or GAO, of course.

[TonyWaugh]

Thanks Ross

I have sent some further information to the IG department at GSA and I am working with the European Logistics Office of Dept. of State because many of the shipments should have been managed by them. I will let you know if we get any further news.

Tony

Tony Waugh

DEWITT MOVE WORLDWIDE | DEWITTMOVE.COM 9142 Crystal River Dr., Indianapolis, IN 46240 CELL 317-373-9041 EMAIL [email protected]

By land, air or sea, THE DEWITT COMPANIES MAKE IT EASY

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From: ross-williford [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, September 10, 2019 10:56:18 PM To: fedspendingtransparency/fedspendingtransparency.github.io [email protected] Cc: Tony Waugh [email protected]; Comment [email protected] Subject: Re: [fedspendingtransparency/fedspendingtransparency.github.io] User Story: As a watchdog, I need a way of reporting anomolous data to ensure accurate reporting of spending (#149)

Interesting background information.

There may be a legitimate reason for how these were managed but it seems that the posts may have been circumventing the system.

This certainly wouldn't surprise me. Unfortunately, not much we can do on our end to fix it (other than raise awareness of the use of MFA). Could be of interest to watchdog groups, inspectors general, or GAO, of course.

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