Founded in Ireland in 1989, Accenture is a publicly-traded company that offers professional services to a wide spectrum of businesses, including the federal government. The company was awarded a 5-year agreement worth a total of $300 million to hire around 7,500 Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) Employees for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The contract was a result from the current Administration’s goal of acquiring 5,000 new agents for border security, but CBP officers were already in short supply as a hiring goal of 2,000 workers from 2014 remains unmet.
Homeland Security’s Inspector General (IG) formally alerted the CBP of “serious performance issues” regarding the contract with Accenture. After the consulting firm had already received $13.6 million throughout the year, the federal agency still saw a net loss of 76 personnel when figuring in those who retired, quit, or left in some other fashion. Only 1.36% of applicants for the vacant positions were hired, resulting in just 15 new officers at the border. Furthermore, only two of those candidates were processed by Accenture, which means the other 13 hires were acquired internally.
The government contract was thus scaled back from $300 million to an obligation of $43 million. A spokesperson representing CBP explained that the Dublin-based vendor would no longer assist in onboarding actual employees, but would continue to market, advertise, and provide other analytic support. “CBP risks wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on a hastily approved contract,” remarked the DHS’ IG ICE canceled solicitation for a similar contract regarding the hiring goal of 26,000 new agents earlier this year.
Until Next Time,
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Hiring for CBP