In October, 2009, the General Accountability Office (GAO) released a report titled “SERVICE-DISABLED VETERAN-OWNED SMALL BUSINESS PROGRAM: Case Studies Show Fraud and Abuse Allowed Ineligible Firms to Obtain Millions of Dollars in Contracts.” As its lengthy subhead would imply, the report listed examples of 10 firms that fraudulently received approximately $100 million in SDVOB contracts.

The audit revealed that the owner of one company was not a service-disabled veteran and another company was owned by a service-disabled veteran, but he did not control the firm’s daily operations. There were also several companies that served as “pass-throughs” for large corporations. As a result, Congressional leaders are pressing government procurement officials to clean up the fraud.

In a Dec. 16^th, 2010 letter, senators Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.), both of whom serve on the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, charged U.S. Small Business Administration Administrator Karen Mills with the task of “rooting out” any and all fraud and abuse, as the 112^th Congress has made this a priority.

The Department of Veterans Affairs recently launched its new reporting and verification system to validate all VOBs listed in the Center for Veterans Enterprise Vendor Information Pages database. The VA sent form 0877 (the Vendor Information Pages Verification Program form) to all VOBs listed demanding that the form must be completed within 90 days for that business to remain eligible for inclusion in the database.

Failure to comply will result in expulsion from the database, forfeiture of any VA contracts, and if the company in question is part of the VA Mentor Protégé program, that company will be removed from that program as well.

There is no denying that a verifiable certification program for valid SDVOBs and VOBs is long overdue. This was a key area of focus in 2006 when I was chairman of the SBA Veterans Business Advisory Committee. But, there is definitely room for improvement with the new VA program. Improving this process and ensuring legitimate and deserving vetrepreneurs get the opportunities they’ve earned and are required by law is the Federal Government Advisory Board’s central focus in 2011.

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