Feature Story for the week of 10/22/2007

Defense to reduce use of other agencies’ contracts
By ELISE CASTELLI

The Defense Department intends to reduce its use of other agencies’ contracts to buy what it needs, a top Defense procurement policy official said Wednesday.

“We’re going to be much more focused in what we’re buying and why we’re using interagency agreements and a lot less interested in using interagency agreements where they buy anything and everything we want,” said Shay Assad, director of Defense procurement policy.

“We want to be very focused about what we’re buying with these interagency agreements, and we want to ensure that’s in fact the best way to go about buying it.”

About 2 percent of the $300 billion that Defense spends on goods and services each year is bought by other agencies on DoD’s behalf, said Assad, who was speaking at the Government Electronics and Information Technology Association Vision Conference in Springfield, Va.

(Full Story)