Inspector General Joe Ferguson compared actual participation in the city’s minority contracting program to statistics reported to the City Council by the city Department of Procurement Services. What he found was a program “beset by fraud and unlawful brokers” that has fallen far short of the city’s claims. In construction contracts awarded in 2008 alone, companies owned by minorities and women got $19 million less than the city claimed they would get, roughly 15 percent of the total touted by the city.
Ferguson also noted that the inspector general’s “recent sustained or soon-to-be sustained investigations into fraud, abuse and mismanagement” in the set-aside program “involve contractors that were awarded over $1 billion in city contracts … since 2003." READ FULL ARTICLE
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