White House Silent On New Date For Canceled Small Business Event

PETALUMA, Calif., May 18, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The White House has still not announced a new date for a major event that was abruptly canceled on the last day of National Small Business Week.

The largest White House event in history to celebrate the announcement of the government's annual Small Business Procurement Scorecard was abruptly canceled just hours before it was planned to begin. The event was to be led by Small Business Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet and was to be attended by several members of the Presidents Cabinet and other senior Obama Administration officials. 

The original date for the event was Friday, May 8, but the White House suddenly announced the event had been canceled late Thursday afternoon. Washington Business Journal journalist Kent Hoover released an article on Friday titled, "It's time for the SBA to get real about small business contracting numbers." He reported the event was abruptly canceled approximately an hour after he contacted the SBA Press Office, headed by Terry Sutherland, and requested the names of the top 100 recipients of federal small business contracts. Hoover also notified the SBA "he planned to ask Contreras-Sweet about what the agency had done to ensure their small business contracting numbers were accurate."

The sudden cancellation of the event may have been to reduce media attention on the fact the majority of the top 100 recipients of federal small business contracts were actually Fortune 500 firms, their subsidiaries and other large businesses.

The decision to cancel the event may have also been based on the release of an embarrassing investigative report on Wednesday, by Pubic Citizen titled "Slighted" with the subtitle "Accounting Tricks Create False Impression That Small Businesses Are Getting Their Fair Share of Federal Procurement Money, and the Political Factors That Might Be at Play."

The report was prompted by research done by the American Small Business League (ASBL) that has found every year of the Obama Administration the vast majority of the top 100 recipients of federal small business contracts were actually corporate giants and large businesses. ASBL President Lloyd Chapman was interviewed for the report.

The House Small Business Committee has unanimously adopted an amendment requesting a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation into fraud in federal small business contracting based on research done by Chapman's ASBL.

The first GAO investigation into small business contracting fraud in 2002 was also based on research by Lloyd Chapman. A February 2003 article in Washington Technology reported, "In December, the General Accounting Office began its own investigation based on information Chapman provided, said Dave Cooper, Director of GAO's Acquisition and Sourcing Management Office."

SBA Press Office Director Terry Sutherland has refused to speak with anyone from the press since the sudden cancellation of the White House Small Business Procurement Scorecard event, and no new date has yet to be announced.

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SOURCE American Small Business League