Subject: [NEXTEL-1] GSA ponders Sprint debarment

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2003 12:53:23 -0400

GSA ponders Sprint debarment
BY Michael Hardy
Aug. 4, 2003

First MCI, now Sprint.
The General Services Administration is considering whether to bar Sprint from
federal contracts following a billing dispute this summer that led to a $5.2
million settlement. The revelation comes as federal officials ponder the
possibility of debarring MCI, which has been accused of masking long-distance
calls from federal agencies to cut fees due to other telecom carriers.

The GSA Inspector General requested the agency to consider the case against
Sprint, which learned of it last week, said company spokesman James Fisher. If the
federal government debars both Sprint and MCI -- the two prime vendors on the
FTS2001 telecommunications contracts -- AT&T, Verizon and Qwest would face a field
without two of their fiercest competitors.

GSA last week recommended that MCI be debarred, which would stop the company from
taking new federal contracts for up to three years, because the agency is not
convinced that MCI has adequately solved the internal problems that led it to
overstate its profits last year.

Fisher said the action against Sprint stems from an inadvertent billing
discrepancy in which Sprint billed agencies for certain access fees at the market
rate rather than the lower FTS2001 contract rate.

"As soon as we were alerted to this, we stopped billing immediately. We sat down
to figure out what happened, and we reached a settlement" with GSA, Fisher said.
"We think it is outrageous to link a simple and settled billing dispute of $5
million with more than $11 billion in fraud by MCI. We think the suggestion by the
IG to consider debarment is unprecedented."

The Inspector General's recommendation means that the agency should consider
whether Sprint should be barred from contracts. GSA declined to comment on the
matter.

MCI, meanwhile, is continuing to bid on contracts and is trying to convince GSA
that it is well on the way to solving its problems, MCI spokeswoman Natasha
Haubold said. Any bids MCI submits while its future is in doubt would be valid if
GSA relents and chooses not to debar the firm. In recent weeks, Verizon and AT&T
have pressed accusations against MCI regarding the improper routing of phone
calls, many which came from the federal government.

The company, which is poised to emerge from bankruptcy in the fall, replaced its
executives and board members after the admitted accounting fraud revealed last
year, and has been working strengthen its internal controls to prevent a
recurrence, she said.
GSA focused on issues such as the fact that not all of the company's 55,000
employees have had new ethics training, Haubold said. "We have not been able to do
that yet. It takes a bit of time."

http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2003/0804/web-sprint-08-04-03.asp

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for Your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark
Printer at Myinks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511
http://us.click.yahoo.com/sO0ANB/LIdGAA/ySSFAA/61FxlB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/