Three GAO Reviews of Contract Administration by the National Cancer Institute

Three GAO reports were discussed which dealt with the contract administration activities of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The first report discussed numerous problems with a contract between NCI and the Eppley Institute of the University of Nebraska. The administration of this contract was faulty because: (1) NCI contracting procedures for technical review were violated; (2) there was a lack of a consensus opinion on the scientific merits of the proposal; (3) projects being funded were of low priority or were not recommended for funding; (4) the bases for contract decisions were not documented; (5) there was a nonacceptance of the technical reviewers' budget recommendations; (6) there was a lack of justification for awarding the contract on a sole source basis; (7) there was a lack of information on what had been accomplished under the contract; (8) the NCI contracting officer took little action to assure compliance with the terms of the contract; (9) the project orally approved work by the contractor on projects not previously authorized under the contract; and (10) NCI officials were not aware that a breeding operation was producing animals in excess of research needs. The second report discussed the inadequate administration of a contract with Tracor-Jitco, Inc. to develop a plan to eliminate a backlog of bioassays, manage NCI bioassay testing activities, and subcontract with laboratories to have bioassays done. NCI monitoring of Tracor-Jitco's efforts in preparing bioassay reports was good. However, NCI monitoring of the firm's management of other bioassay activities was inadequate. As a result, NCI was unaware that the firm did not report all subcontractor laboratory deficiencies, did not assure that the deficiencies were corrected, and did not detect certain deficiencies which could affect the quality of the bioassays. GAO recommended a closer monitoring of the firm's performance and use of the information found in determining the amount of the award fee. The final report discussed weaknesses in both contract award and monitoring for five cancer control programs. Two contracts were awarded without required revisions, deficiencies were not corrected, the contracts were not monitored to determine the amount of encouragement for local funding which was undertaken, recommendations of post-award review groups were not implemented, and 13 of 33 tasks to be done under three contracts were not accomplished while contractors received full payment.