COVID Procurement: $4 Billion Into a Broken Supply Chain

Congress sent VA $36.6B in COVID supplements. GAO found an inventory system so antiquated it couldn’t track PPE, vendors who took contracts and couldn’t deliver, and every modernization fix delayed in early planning.

From the government's own report. Issuing body: Government Accountability Office, GAO-21-280 (2021). Every figure on this page is taken from that report, linked in full at the bottom.
$19.6B + $17BCongressional COVID supplements to VA (Mar. 2020, Mar. 2021)
$4B+Obligated for COVID products/services by May 2021
49 vs 22Acquisition recommendations VA agreed with vs implemented since 2015

When COVID hit, the VA needed protective equipment and supplies at wartime speed. Congress appropriated $19.6 billion in March 2020 and another $17 billion in March 2021. By May 2021 the VA had obligated over $4 billion for COVID-19 products and services.

GAO found the scramble ran through a supply chain that could not see itself: long-standing problems with VA’s antiquated inventory management system made the shortages worse, some vendors were unable to deliver PPE at all — forcing terminated contracts and belated vendor screening — and each of the VA’s three modernization initiatives (a DoD inventory system, Regional Readiness Centers, the Warstopper emergency-supply program) was delayed and still in early planning.

The March 2021 recommendation — develop a comprehensive supply chain strategy — was concurred in. GAO also noted the standing pattern behind it: of 49 acquisition recommendations made since 2015, VA had agreed with all of them and implemented 22. VA acquisition management remains on the High Risk List.

"Long-standing problems with its antiquated inventory management system exacerbated VA’s challenges"
— GAO-21-280
The reports in this library were written for Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins's department — and the accountability record for his office is kept at DearDougCollins.com. For veterans and families on the receiving end of these systems, the resource hub is BrownWaterVet.com.

Source: GAO — VA COVID-19 Procurements: Pandemic Underscores Urgent Need to Modernize Supply Chain (GAO-21-280). Part of the VA Fraud library — see also the case files for the prosecutions these systems produced.

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