The Rural Water Administration (RWA) was established to ensure safe water availability in New York, following the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1996. However, RWA was disregarded during the creation of the advisory committee on water program management because of potential conflict of interest as termed by stakeholders (Meyer, 2006). The exclusion of RWA in the designing of the advisory committee is the substructure of the RWA case, which entails the protection of public interest and avoiding conflict of interest by stakeholders in project contracting. Despite excluding RWA from deliberations of creating the advisory committee, Primacy Agency, which was in charge of water program management in New York, invited RWA’s competitors to join the former. Primacy Agency’s action is unethical as it appeared to favor RWA’s competitors, even though RWA was a premier stakeholder in the water affairs of New York. All parties interested in a contract should be included in deliberations (Savas, 2005; Kolpakov, & Anguelov, 2018). RWA had several conflicting encounters with Primacy Agency, propelled by RWA's consideration of the latter’s fraudulent contracting. RWA also cited an apparent conflict of interest in how the Primacy Agency awarded contracts to Community Trainers, a rival training agency. The RWA case against the Primacy agency showcases how working relationships are strained when unethical concerns such as conflict of interest in project contracting arise.
Kassel, D. S. (2010), argues that project managers should ensure that an RPF process or bidding is untainted with charges of unethical practice such as unfairness or favoritism. The policy may be applied in the RWA case, where the Primacy Agency should have ensured no unethical concerns are raised against its bidding and RPF processes, for it to sustain a positive public image. According to Curry (2015), the contracting process should provide all required information and requirements through publicly accessible means such as through a website. In RWA’s case, the Primacy Agency fails to provide enough information to RWA, making the contracting process unethical.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
References
Curry, W. S. (2015). The Contracting Process. Government Contracting: A Public Solutions Handbook, 38.
Kassel, D. S. (2010). Managing public sector projects: a strategic framework for success in an era of downsized government. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Kolpakov, A., & Anguelov, L. G. (2018). Decision-making approaches to contracting out. Journal of Strategic Contracting and Negotiation, 4 (3), 148-166.
Meyer, C. K. (2006). Managing Americas organizations. Des Moines, IA: Millennium HRM Press.
Savas, E. S. (2005). Privatization in the city: Successes, failures, lessons. CQ press.
Tiemann, M. (2014). Safe drinking water act (SDWA): A summary of the act and its major requirements (pp. 7-5700). Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service.
