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A project of Common Dreams

For Immediate Release
Contact: Caitlin MacNeal,COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER,(202) 347-1122,cmacneal@pogo.org

POGO Requests Concealed Contractor Information

WASHINGTON

Today the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) submitted
a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request
to gain access to all
records contained in a newly created contractor responsibility and
performance database. The Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity
Information System (FAPIIS) to improve the government's ability to
evaluate the responsibility of contractors will be accessible to
government officials starting April 22, 2010. FAPIIS was created using
POGO's contractor misconduct database as a model.

"It's
illogical to think that the public will be denied access to a database
that compiles press releases, agreements, and information from
government websites," commented POGO's General Counsel Scott Amey. "The
public should demand access to this information in order to hold
agencies and contractors accountable."

POGO believes that
contractor responsibility and performance data improves contracting
decisions and provides the public with insights into how the government
spends hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars each year on goods and
services. Last year, the federal government awarded nearly $524 billion in taxpayer dollars for contracts, but
the government grants taxpayers very little information about how that
money was awarded and the return on that spending.

FAPIIS was signed into law by President Bush on October 14,
2008, and the final regulation was published in the Federal
Register on March 23, 2010. POGO applauds the leadership of
Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), as well as the work of
Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA), and Edolphus Towns (D-NY) and
Senators Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Carl Levin (D-MI), and John McCain
(R-AZ), and who promoted improved contractor accountability. It should
also be noted that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton and former Representative Tom Davis (R-VA) also promoted these
efforts while they were in Congress. In the absence of a public
centralized federal database listing instances of misconduct, POGO
provides such data in our contractor misconduct database, which can be
accessed at https://contractormisconduct.org/.

The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is an independent nonprofit that investigates and exposes corruption and other misconduct in order to achieve a more effective, accountable, open and honest federal government.