SBA’s Women-owned Small Business Contracting Program

This audit report presents the results of our audit of the Small Business Administration’s (SBA’s) Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) Federal Contracting Program (Program) with the objectives to determine (1) whether contracts awarded on a sole-source basis complied with requirements of the Program and (2) whether firms that received set-aside contracts on a sole-source basis conformed to the self-certification requirements. The purpose of SBA’s WOSB Program is to provide greater access to Federal contracting opportunities for firms that are women-owned small businesses and economically disadvantaged women-owned small businesses that meet Program requirements.

We found that Federal agencies’ contracting officers and firms did not comply with Federal regulations for 50 of the 56 Program sole-source contracts, valued at $52.2 million. As a result, there was no assurance that these contracts were awarded to firms that were eligible to receive sole-source awards under the Program. The OIG recommended that SBA establish and implement a certification process as required and provided five additional recommendations to improve SBA’s oversight of the Program. SBA’s management planned actions resolve one recommendation. The OIG will work with SBA management to resolve the remaining five recommendations through the audit follow-up process.