Neither the Department of Veterans Affairs nor Dell Inc. have bothered to make a big deal out of announcing a new contract worth nearly half a billion dollars, prompting speculation over why.

 

Quietly revealed on a federal government website (FedBizOpps.gov), the deal is for Dell to provide up to 600,000 personal computers to the VA for $476.6 million over an eight-year period.

 

Dell ordinarily announces its government contracts, but hadn’t done so 15 days after the deal became official on April 26. It may be because the last big contract Dell did with the VA, although legal, did not pass the smell test.

 

That contract between the VA and the computer manufacturer was signed in 2007 to lease more than 250,000 PCs for three years at a cost of $248 million. The department’s own inspector general criticized that arrangement in a June 2008 report, stating that “The contract was not necessary or in the best interest of VA,” adding that it lacked “effective means to ensure competitive, reasonable prices” in the later years of the deal.

 

The House Veterans Affairs Committee was not told about the latest new contract. It was already planning a hearing with the VA, and a committee spokesman said lawmakers intended to ask questions about the management, procurement and planning of IT projects, but not necessarily about the Dell contract.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Veterans Affairs Quietly Awards Dell $476 Million Contract for 600,000 Personal Computers (by Bob Brewin, NextGov)

Review of Enterprise-Wide PC Lease Awarded to Dell Marketing, L.P. (Department of Veterans Affairs, Inspector General) (pdf)