The US Department of War will review its contracts with small businesses run by \u201csocially and economically disadvantaged\u201d people<\/p>\n
The Pentagon will review all contracts worth over $20 million which it signed with small businesses under the 8A program, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has announced. Most of the firms operate as shell companies which funnel money to major consulting groups, he claimed.
\nHegseth announced the audit on Saturday, stating that it will begin immediately. The move comes as part of the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to eradicate the \u201ccorruptive, unconstitutional, non-merit-based\u201d diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices in the military, he said.\u00a0
\n\u201cWe\u2019re taking a sledgehammer to the oldest DEI program in the federal government, a program few people outside of Washington have ever heard of,\u201d he stated.
\nThe program to support companies run by \u201csocially and economically disadvantaged\u201d people was established in 1978 under Section 8A of the Small Businesses Act. Over the years, it has become a massive \u201cbreeding ground for fraud,\u201d Hegseth claimed.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Pentagon announces new AI acceleration strategy<\/p>\n
\u201cIn many instances, these socially disadvantaged businesses, they don\u2019t even do work. They take a 10%, 20%, sometimes 50% fee off the top, and then pass the contract off to a giant consulting firm, commonly known as Beltway Bandits,\u201d he said, referring to consulting and research companies operating within Washington\u2019s ring highway which perform lucrative contractor work for the US government.
\n\u201cEffective immediately, I\u2019m ordering a line-by-line review of every small business sole source 8A contract that is over $20 million. And we\u2019ll look at everything smaller than that, too,\u201d Hegseth said.
\nAny 8A contracts deemed to be not contributing to the US military\u2019s \u201clethality\u201d will be terminated, while those companies participating in the \u201cpass-through schemes\u201d for the Beltway Bandits will lose them as well, he warned.
\nThe Pentagon has long been plagued by allegations of wasteful spending, opaque contracting, and questionable procurement practices, coupled with its ever-increasing budget. While the Trump administration has repeatedly pledged to fix the situation and make the military less wasteful and more \u201clethal,\u201d it has already secured a record $901 billion war budget. Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump pledged a massive 50% increase in defense spending to $1.5 trillion in 2027; the remarks sent defense stocks skyrocketing worldwide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US Department of War will review its contracts with small businesses run by \u201csocially and economically disadvantaged\u201d people The Pentagon will review all contracts worth over $20 million which…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}