(a) Participating mentors shall be required to submit periodic progress reports on the fulfillment of their proposals. Furthermore, when a mentor voluntarily furnishes a copy of the MBA to the Government, the contracting officer shall compare the later agreement to the mentor's earlier proposal.
(b) All accomplishments against MBA proposals shall be reviewed semi-annually with the mentor and the protege by the contracting officer and the cognizant small business specialists from the buying activity and the DCMA component(s). (Administration of contracts containing the MBA provision/clause should ordinarily be delegated to DCMA; however, when overall administration is retained, supporting administration by DCMA must nevertheless be requested for purposes of Program oversight. See, generally, 42.202(e)(90). Activity/component Commanders or their Deputies are strongly encouraged to participate in such reviews. HQ DLA (DIRECTOR, ACQUISITION MANAGEMENT (J-7) and DDAS) shall also be afforded an opportunity to participate.
(c) Not only shall small business specialists monitor contractor activity under the plan, but they shall also, at least implicitly, oversee and report on performance under the agreement, when that document has been provided to the Government. Note, though, that even if activity in accordance with the agreement is able to be monitored, such information cannot be used as the basis for any contractual determination (including source selection, option exercise, or order placement), because the mentor's contractual duties to DLA extend only to the contents of the plan. Similarly, a formal assessment of the protege's fulfillment of its undertakings (as set forth in the MBA) cannot be made, because that party's contractual obligations extend only to the prime. Despite this, the general monitoring of all aspects of performance is one of the Government's primary duties under the MBA Program. A proper balance must therefore be maintained between the demands occasioned by legitimate Government interests, and respect for a contractual relationship to which the Government is not a party.
(d) Wherever possible, this Program will utilize existing reporting mechanisms to evaluate prime contractor compliance.
(e) A Reports Control System (RCS) number has been established for reporting the number of MBAs in place each fiscal quarter. Additionally, you are required to indicate whether, for the applicable buys, offers were received from both small/”ABILITYONE” and large entities, whether the successful offeror chose to participate in the MBA program, and, if so, whether the successful offeror was a small/”ABILITYONE” or a large business. The RCS number remains DLA(Q)2609(MM). These reports are mandatory, and are due from the corporate contract policy office at each Center to HQ DLA, ATTN: J-71, by the 10th working day of the month following the end of the quarter.
(f) Notification of a mentor's and protege's arrangements regarding signing ceremonies for these MBA agreements shall, whenever practicable, be provided to Headquarters, DLA (DDAS and J-71) at least two weeks prior to the planned event so that DLA executives may attend, at their election. Formal ceremonies with appropriate publicity are encouraged.
