Trump SBA launches audit of all government contracts awarded over the past 10 years

The Small Business Administration (SBA) is ordering a comprehensive review of all government contract officials who have exercised the grant award under the agency’s business development plan over the past 15 years after the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) discovered a massive bribery scandal.

SBA administrator Kelly Loeffler said in a letter obtained by Fox News Digital that the scale of U.S. Agency for International Development’s fraud is a “annoying reflection of the systemic failure of oversight and accountability”. She further said that fraud is “not an isolated incident.”

In response, Loeffler directed Tre Pennie, deputy chief executive who oversees the government contract awarded by the SBA, to “decisively” combat any potential similar abuse in the agency.

Loeffler directed Pennie to immediately conduct a full review of the agency’s awarded officials, back to 2010.

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“The role of the federal contracting officials is not etiquette or self-transaction; it is a position of great authority and fiduciary responsibility,” Loeffler said. “The contracting process must be transparent and based on strengths rather than personal interests.”

After the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), an agency responsible for managing civil assistance was basically removed from garbage, fraud and abuse ruled by Presidents Elon Musk and Donald Trump. The move was met by mass protests by Democrats, who claimed that cutting U.S.A.I.D. would put recipients around the world in trouble.

Despite claiming how outstanding the agency has done, it has recently been discovered that Roderick Watson, an influential contracting officer at the U.S. Agency for International Development, was able to execute a massive long-term bribery program, dating back to 2013.

Watson, 57, pleaded guilty to “bribery by public officials,” according to a press release from Justice Department.

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Protesters held a meeting with members of Congress at Pete Marocco, deputy administrator of the United States International Development Agency (USAID), to discuss foreign aid, and held a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, and the United States International Development Agency (USAID) held a placard. (Reuters/Kent Nissi Village)

According to the Justice Department, Watson has sold his influence since 2013, with Vistant owner Walter Barnes and Applyl owner Darryl Britt raising returns through subcontractor Paul Young to hide their tracks.

Britt and Barnes “regularly hold bribes to Watson, including cash, laptops, thousands of dollars in tickets, suites in NBA games, country club weddings, and drops on two residential mortgages, cellular phones, cellular phones and relatives’ jobs invoices.”

The statement said Watson received the bribe “as part of the program, worth more than $1 million.”

Vistant was awarded in November 2023 with a contract worth up to $800 million, and one of the key points of the contract is to address “various issues affecting irregular migration from Central America to the United States”, a problem that President Joe Biden, who was then on Kamala Harris, was linked to his presidential obligations.

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Workers delete the headquarters of the U.S. International Development Agency in Washington, DC on February 7, 2025 (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

The contract was cancelled a few days later after the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which said it was excluded from government contracts because of “there is evidence of lack of evidence of business honesty or integrity.

The joint venture then successfully sued the government for being included in the exclusion list and re-granted the contract and paid $10,000 in August 2024.

Loeffler said in the letter that the U.S. Agency for International Development scandal “represents the collapse of safeguards that should protect the U.S. taxpayer dollar and ensure fair access rights to legal small businesses.”

Although the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) labeled it as a lack of “honestness and integrity”, she slammed the Biden administration’s $800 million contract awarded to Vistant.

“The fact that federal officials are able to act as key figures in ongoing mass fraud operations suggests failures in internal controls and collapses that need immediate correction in the contracting environment,” Loeffler said.

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Small Business Management Building (U.S. Government Accountability Office)

She said the SBA plays a “key role” in the federal signing and “will no longer suffer taxpayers and small businesses that deserve it at the expense of abuse.”

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Lofler said the agency’s audit will begin with high-priced and limited competition contracts in the SBA 8(a) business development plan. The findings will be referred to the U.S. Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and the Department of Justice.

Loeffler said any official or business found to violate the SBA’s ethics standards or commit to a crime will be forwarded to the appropriate authorities, and the SBA will assist the Department of Justice to recover the stolen funds.

“We won’t let the public trust be quietly eroded by backdoor transactions and uncontrolled discretion,” Loeffler said.

“We should attribute it to small businesses in the United States to correctly address this,” she continued. “Your office has the power to act decisively and it is the task now.”