GAO Claims Abuse in Disabled Vet SBA Program

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GAO Claims Abuse in Disabled Vet SBA Program
December 30, 2009
Military.com|by Bryant Jordan

A retired F-16 pilot who works at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., is under investigation after his private furniture supply business was cited in a government report on fraud and abuse in a contracting program for service-disabled vets who own their own companies.

Retired Lt. Col. Dwaine Zitko, owner of Furniture Fixtures & Equipment Office Solutions Inc., in Tampa, was questioned Dec. 21 by the Office of Special Investigations in connection with a $900,000 contract he won to design and furnish a command and control center at the base.

Zitko’s company was one of 10 identified in a General Accountability Office report submitted to the House Veterans Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill on Dec. 16. The 10 companies have picked up contracts worth a total of $100 million, GAO investigator Gregory D. Kutz told lawmakers, yet all were ineligible for the contracts.

The program is the Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business program, for which the Small Business Administration reported $6.5 billion in government sole-source set-asides and other contracts in 2008, GAO reported.

Kutz did not dispute that Zitko is a disabled vet. He said Zitko’s company is not eligible because Zitko does not do any work, but subcontracts the job to others.


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