SO GPSS owes Xerox $400,000? Ahh, the irony. We must sometimes be careful of what we wish for.
We don’t have any particular Xerox to gore, but we’ve been trying for years to discover the details of the bid proposal and award for the GPSS copier contract, and when it was given, but GPSS would not or could not produce it. The whole deal suggests shades of the GSA copier procurement mess unearthed by Guam’s Office of the Public Auditor, which reported that GSA had been spending millions and millions of dollars on unauthorized copier contracts, since at least the beginning of the Millennium.
What we do know is that GPSS has been obligated to pay Xerox at least $133,000 per month for copier services for years now. So that means GPSS is only three months behind on its contract. Why, that’s almost diligent when you compare it to the arrears on government payments of GPSS employee payroll obligations.
We also have information suggesting the GPSS Xerox copier contract was let out as a “sole source” bid, and has been rolled over time after time in apparent violation of the limitation on the size of contracts allowed to roll over. But we don’t know, really, what the copier contract entails other than an expense of well over one and a half million dollars a year. That’s a lot of “xeroxing,” as I heard one radio announcer refer to it.
I suppose if you put out a bid for “xeroxing” services, it is indeed “sole source” to buy from Xerox, but I would think the government would want to canvass a wider copier machine market to obtain as competitive a price as it could get for its copying needs. When procurement is conducted to get around the purposes and spirit of the procurement laws and regulations, competition is thwarted and government, its taxpayers more particularly, end up paying more.
It is express purpose of Guam’s procurement laws and regulation to “foster broad-based competition.” Properly drafted competitive bid specifications and properly followed other procurement regulations would go a considerable distance in cutting the bloated expenses of government.
The government has the procurement regulations and laws it needs. It just needs the managers to learn and then follow the laws, and the management will to foster a competitive and transparent procurement process in the full spirit of the procurement laws.

JOHN THOS. BROWN
Maite, Guam