Reassessment of Eligibility Requirements for 30 Firms in SBA's 8(a) Business Development Program

This report presents the results of our reassessment of eligibility requirements for 30 firms in the Small Business Administration’s (SBA’s) 8(a) Business Development Program.  In a prior audit of 8(a) program eligibility, we determined that for 30 of the 48 applicants we reviewed, the Associate Administrator for Business Development (AA/BD) approved the firms without fully documenting in the Business Development Management Information System how all areas of concern regarding eligibility raised by lower-level reviewers were resolved.

We determined that SBA resolved eligibility concerns for 20 of the 30 firms that we reviewed.  However, we continue to question the eligibility of 10 of the 30 firms.  The AA/BD, who has the final authority to determine whether an applicant is admitted into the 8(a) program, did not sufficiently establish that the 10 applicants met the eligibility requirements of the 8(a) program.  The Office of Inspector General made three recommendations to the Associate Administrator for Government Contracting and Business Development to improve how SBA manages the 8(a) program.  Although SBA initially agreed with all three of our recommendations, it did not concur with Recommendations 2 and 3 in its final response; SBA management’s proposed actions, however, resolve all three of our recommendations.