Procurement Practices at the Defense Fuel Supply Center

There have been allegations of poor procurement practices at the Defense Fuel Supply Center. Parker Solvents Company, Inc., claimed that it was not notified when the procurement responsibility for solvents was switched from the Little Rock Air Force Base to the Fuel Supply Center and that it had bid a lower price than the firm that was awarded a contract.

The contract award at the higher price occurred because the base solicited and obtained a bid from Parker without knowledge that the Fuel Supply Center had already filled the base requirement through another contract awarded at a higher price 2 months earlier. A review of the procedures used to notify fuel and petrochemical suppliers where their bids should be submitted showed that local installation suppliers are not notified when bids for their products are no longer solicited locally, but, instead, are being solicited centrally from the Fuel Supply Center. The Defense Logistics Agency has agreed to require activities such as the Air Force base to forward the names and addresses of past local suppliers of petroleum products to it so that the Center may send a bidder's list application to the local suppliers and inform them of centralized procurement solicitations and procedures. The Agency asserted that this was the only known case within the past year where a local supplier was inadvertently deprived of the opportunity to bid on petroleum products. The Agency will conduct a cost comparison review of specific petroleum products to determine if solicitations should be made centrally or by local installations. (SC)