WASHINGTON – A new report requested by Sen. Chuck Grassley on a tip from an Iowa whistleblower confirms the U.S. Postal Service mishandled $18.4 million in contract payments to maintain and change the locks on Postal Service-owned mailboxes in the Western Area including Iowa.
“The whistleblower came forward with his concerns, I asked for an investigation, and the investigation found the whistleblower was right,” Grassley said. “This is a good example of why whistleblowers who identify waste, fraud and abuse deserve a Rose Garden ceremony on behalf of the grateful public. It’s also a good example of why every agency that serves the public needs an independent watchdog to review issues of concern.”Grassley received information from an Iowa whistleblower and made a request to the Postal Service Office of Inspector General in October 2012. The whistleblower alleged that the Postal Service’s contract with Diebold, Inc., to repair and change locks in the Postal Service’s Western Area disregarded many Postal Service rules and procedures.
The inspector general found the Postal Service did not award the contract in accordance with Postal Service policies and procedures and did not develop a purchase plan or conduct a price analysis before awarding the contract.
As a result, contracting officials did not assess price reasonableness or obtain higher level review and approval as required, and the Postal Service did not conduct an analysis to establish the contract payments of $18,399,448 provided the best value, although this does not necessarily indicate the Postal Service incurred losses.
Based on inspector general’s calculations, the Postal Service overestimated the annual cost savings by $6,839,456 per year and awarded the contract based on this inflated cost savings assumption.
The report is available here.
The outsourcing of this work does not shock me at all. Top-level managers that are responsible for conducting an Article 32 consideration of such work rarely conducts such an analysis, and in most cases, have no clue about how to conduct such analysis. I’m confident in saying that USPS maintenance personnel could’ve performed the work much cheaper than 18 million. This is just another example of large mis-managed government. Sad part is, no one will be held accountable.
The USPS overestimated the savings on this contract by over 6 million, one third of what it paid out to Diebold, can you really trust any of their made-up numbers? Like saving 2 billion by getting rid of sat delivery. Nobody can verify any of the numbers they make-up.
Some trucking contracts are costly, investigating needed
What you gonna do about it?
More of the usual theft, corruption, and unethical behavoir from postal mgmt/eas.
Also as usual, none of them will be held accountable for anything.