Accenture’s US Army contract raises potential monopoly and corruption concerns
We have seen companies in many sectors across the board gain monopoly power status. From the railroads with Cornelius Vanderbilt, to the Big Tech companies with Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. Monopolies end up crushing competition, limiting innovation, threatening freedom of speech, and ultimately costing consumers more money because they have no choices.
President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has identified an under the radar monopoly, costing taxpayers billions of dollars in inefficiency through backroom deals. This is something most Americans know is going on, but Trump and Musk seem to actually be addressing it as part of their drain the swamp mentality. Government consulting monopolies. The Trump administration is quickly attacking the issue of consulting company monopolies owning the government. Elon Musk and DOGE have exposed many schemes of taxpayer funded projects not being efficient. In a recent General Services Administration (GSA) memo, all agencies were tasked with drastically reducing federal dependence on the largest ten consulting firms that tax the most dollars from taxpayers. The largest mega sized consulting firms appear to be on the verge of massive reductions in government contracts. One Trump Administration source simply said, “it’s over”. The cuts to date have been significant, but appear to be soon ramping up as the Trump Administration begins focusing on monopolies within the Department of Defense (DOD). One unnamed DOD executive said, “the cuts in the civilian agencies are peanuts compared to what is going to happen in DOD. We won’t allow these large consulting firms to own us any longer.”
One such monopoly has been featured in the news and in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims over a billion dollar program awarded at the very end of the Biden Administration, Enterprise Business Systems - Convergence (EBS-C). Accenture Federal Services has all but owned the DOD’s SAP contracts for decades, creating an impenetrable monopoly that even the largest companies in America refuse to take on. One senior DOGE leader remarked, “It’s not lost on us that Accenture seems to win every Army and DLA SAP competition.” President Biden’s appointees in the United States Army, facing billions needed to fix all the SAP problems implemented over the decades, are alleged to have rigged the EBS-C procurement, awarding another billion in tax payers money to the long time monopoly, Accenture Federal. Although heavily redacted, court filings claim Accenture may not have even been eligible for the award, may have faked the demonstrations required for the award, and the Army may have even cherry picked award criteria to rig the procurement for the long time incumbent. It’s notable the EBS-C procurement was done by the Army using the congressionally created Other the Transaction Authority (OTA) process, to skirt Federal Acquisition Regulations and seemingly abuse the spirit of the OTA program. This lawsuit raises all sorts of questions about potential shady behind the scenes deals, and why billions more were awarded by the Biden Administration to a company that has already received many billions in taxpayer money creating these SAP messes over the decades. Claims but the Army of trying to take a new and modern direction appear to fall flat as they go right back to Accenture.
Per the court filings, over the course of 12 months, the Army conducted a five-step process, requiring each contract bidder to demonstrate their solution and eliminating poor performing bidders after each. Filings show that Accenture likely faked their demonstration required for the billion dollar EBS-C award. One source at The House Oversight Committee tells the reporter, “We have seen abuses from monopolies before. We have seen sweetheart deals before. But we have never seen something so blatantly rigged as the Army’s Accenture contract.” Another source on the Senate Armed Services Committee said, “This is the story of an allegedly rigged procurement signed off on by Biden political appointees, a billion dollars seemingly awarded in a sweetheart deal at the end of the Biden Administration.”
As DOGE ramps up their work to cut waste, Accenture is in the hot seat. Elon Musk has already identified Accenture as government waste through DOGE. Just this week, Musk canceled a US government contract with Accenture. This caused their stock to fall by 7 percent last week. Accenture also faces legal battles. Just a few months ago, Groundswell went to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in a protest against the Army’s award of the EBS-C contract. According to sources, as the Trump Administration focuses on breaking the stranglehold that the mega consulting firms have on the DOD, critics are closely watching to see if the Army takes these claims seriously, or simply continues feeding the swamp.
