PETALUMA, CA--(Marketwired - May 15, 2014) - According to the American Small Business League, newly appointed Small Business Administration (SBA) head Maria Contreras-Sweet is scheduled to speak in Washington on Thursday May 15th and Friday May 16th as part of National Small Business Week.
Contreras-Sweet will be speaking at:
Chamber of Commerce
FHI360 Conference Center
1825 Connecticut Avenue NW - 8th Floor
Washington, DC 20009
Administrator Contreras-Sweet may have to face some tough questions on the continuing federal investigative reports and media reports that have found hundreds of billions of dollars in federal small business contracts that have been knowingly diverted to Fortune 500 firms.
American Express recently recognized Administrator Contreras-Sweet as one of the four most "ardent advocates" for small businesses in America along with American Small Business League President Lloyd Chapman. Chapman stated, "I was shocked to hear that Administrator Contreras-Sweet is speaking at the US Chamber of Commerce. The US Chamber has been lobbying to close the SBA and end all federal small business programs since Ronald Reagan was President. The US Chamber is certainly no friend of mine as anyone can see by watching the debate between their spokesman and myself on CNBC."
Federal investigators have found Fortune 500 firms to be the actual recipient of billions of dollars in federal small business contracts every year since 2002. The most recent data from the Federal Procurement Data System indicates that 175 Fortune 500 firms received federal small business contracts last year and 235 from the previous year.
The SBA Office of Inspector General headed by Obama appointee Peg Gustafson, has named the diversion of federal small business contracts to large corporations as the number one problem at the SBA every year for the last six years.
After investigating the SBA, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) essentially accused senior SBA executives of encouraging fraud when they released Report 10-108 that stated, "By failing to hold firms accountable, SBA and contracting agencies have sent a message to the contracting community that there is no punishment or consequences for committing fraud."
A recent legal opinion by Professor Charles Tiefer, one of the nation's leading experts on federal contracting law, found that legitimate small business might have been fraudulently cheated out of over one trillion dollars.
In what appears to be an escalation in the SBA's campaign to limit media coverage of the well-documented fraud and abuse in federal small business contracting programs, former Director of Corporate Communications for the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, retired Naval Commander Terry Sutherland took control of the SBA Press Office in April of 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 dollars in federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms will continue under Administrator Contreras-Sweet's leadership.
Question for the SBA can be directed to SBA spokesman Terry Sutherland
(202) 205-6919 | terrence.sutherland@sba.gov | www.terrysutherlandinfo.org