Interagency office set to create "g-bay" site

Efforts to create "g-bay," a central, Internet-based auction site for the public to purchase government assets, are moving forward under the direction of FinanceNet, an interagency operation created under Vice President Al Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government.

"FinanceNet has been tasked with enhancing the g-bay portal," said B. Preston Rich, FinanceNet's executive director. "We are going to build a virtual government warehouse. This new asset portal should be self-funding."

G-bay gained attention Monday when Vice President Al Gore called for a large percentage of government services to be offered online by 2003. This included a request for an Internet site that would sell equipment no longer being utilized by the federal government.

This is not a new idea for Gore. He supported FinanceNet's attempts to create such a "one-stop-shop" as far back as 1995. "We are taking our lead from the Vice President," Rich said. "Any agency that has a physical asset disposal mission needs to be involved."

FinanceNet is in the beginning stages of ramping up a pilot project for the site and currently has a contractor studying implementation possibilities for g-bay.

Currently, citizens interested in purchasing surplus government equipment must visit multiple Web sites with no possibility of an integrated view for comparing prices.

FinanceNet was created in 1994 to track and examine financial-related information stemming from work done by the National Partnership for the Reinvention of Government (NPR). It takes policy direction from NPR, the Chief Financial Officers Council and the Office of Management and Budget.