D.C. Council Member Jack Evans, D-Ward 2, called a scathing report from the Government Accountability Office on the District’s contracting and procurement practices “ridiculous” and a “waste of energy.”

“We have studied procurement many times and have many reports on it and we’ve identified what the problems are,” said Evans, who chairs the District’s finance committee. “If they have concrete solutions, that would be helpful.”

The GAO report asks Mayor Adrian Fenty to submit a comprehensive plan with a time frame to Congress for revising and strengthening oversight of the District’s procurement laws.

The report includes 19 recommendations that it urges Fenty to address. Those recommendations include recruiting a qualified chief procurement officer who can work with other agency heads, as well as elevating the CPO to a “critical” position to “allow participation in cross-cutting executive management, budgeting, planning, and review processes,” the report says. It also recommends the District install an integrated procurement data system.

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Potentially the most controversial recommendation at the local level deals with the District’s allowance of several agencies to circumvent procurement rules.

The GAO report recommends applying procurement rules to all District agencies that receive federal appropriations except in narrowly defined situations.

That’s an idea Evans takes issue with.

The council last week approved emergency legislation that allowed the Metropolitan Police Department to bypass the procurement laws in order to speed the purchase of surveillance cameras.

“It was taking six, seven, eight months to get through the procurement ... Citizens were screaming, ‘We want these cameras,’” Evans said.

Former Ward 3 Democratic Council Member Kathy Patterson, however, did not find the GAO report surprising.

She blamed current problems with contracting and procurement on inattention to the office during Mayor Anthony Williams’ eight-year tenure.

The GAO report “shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody,” Patterson said. “It just hasn’t seen the investment.”

cmabeus@dcexaminer.com