Mr Bush’s GSA Appointee Lurita Alexis Doan- A Failure at Her Job

Mr Bush’s GSA Appointee Lurita Alexis Doan- A Failure at Her Job

I’ve posted before about Mr. Bush’s inept selections to important government positions (12/29/06, 12/23/06 & 12/06/06). He has shown a pattern of appointing the wrong people to the job he Doan_2 appoints them to. This wouldn’t be so bad if they were inconsequential political appointments, but too often they are very significant government positions.

We have the example of his appointment of Lurita Alexis Doan, a Virginia businesswoman, who was his selection in April of 2006 as Administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA). She was the founder and former owner of a Virginia surveillance technology company which held more then $200 Million in government contracts when she sold it in July 2005.

The GSA is deals with federal procurement, purchases and expenditures. Among other functions it is the government’s "landlord" of it’s real estate. It is involved in almost $60 Billion dollars of federal spending including government owned or leased buildings, a fleet of 170,000 cars and products from lap top computers to complex systems costing over $100 million.

The risk of abuse of taxpayer’s funds in this process resulted in the creation of the Inspector General (IG) offices, within the GSA. The role of the IG is to operate as an independent watchdog for the American taxpayer to guard against wasteful spending and fraud. The IG audits have helped recovery Billions of dollars due to fraud and overcharging.

However, shortly after taking over her new position, Doan began cutting budget proposals for funding the work of the IG office. She not only proposed cutting millions in funding from their audit work, but she also wanted to take away audit responsibility from this independent agency and instead give the job to private contractors. Not only that, she intervened in the attempt to see that contractors who had been charged with fraud were prohibited from doing business with the government. Her intervention was viewed as highly improper for someone heading the GSA. Undeterred, she continued to try to hamper the work and was critical of the IG role in conducting audits for fraud, claiming the Inspector General’s office has "terrorized the Regional Administrators."

All of this while government spending with private contractors is at an all time high. Some 60,000 civilian contractors have been involved in Iraq and the extent of fraud and over billing has been widely reported in the media. The importance of an independent government agency to monitor taxpayer money cannot be over emphasized, yet the head of the agency responsible for it has consistently tried to interfere with the process since her appointment by Mr. Bush.

Her interference with the government watchdog agency did not go unnoticed. As Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) expressed it in a letter to Doan: "The primary mission of the IG in your agency and every other government agency is to be a sentry standing guard against fraud, waste and abuse wherever it occurs regardless of the circumstances. This cannot be accomplished if the IG’s independence is impaired or hindered by the agency in any way, shape or form."

One official in the IG office said Doan’s efforts to hinder the work of the Inspector General was "unprecedented" and went on to say "For the first time in memory, the Budget Office changed or deleted portions of our budget without notifying us…"

If this wasn’t bad enough, Mr. Bush’s political appointee, Ms. Doan, has now been caught trying to give a government contract to a company owned by a close friend without going through the required bid process and side stepping federal laws and regulations. She personally signed the deal, but the contract was terminated after it was discovered. The Inspector General’s office has launched an investigation and watchdog committees in Congress are looking in to the matter.

One more example of the lack of integrity, competence and qualifications of the people President Bush has appointed to important government posts.

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