WASHINGTON — Minority-owned businesses say they're paying the price for the decision by Congress and the Bush administration to waive certain rules for Hurricane Katrina recovery contracts.

About 1.5 percent of the $1.6 billion awarded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency has gone to minority businesses, less than a third of the 5 percent normally required.

Yesterday, Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, and Rep. Donald A. Manzullo, R-Ill., asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate whether small and minority-owned businesses have been given a fair opportunity to compete for contracts.

Andrew Jenkins doesn't think so.

Once Katrina's destructive waters receded, he began making calls in hopes of a winning a government contract for his Jackson, Miss.-based construction company.

Jenkins says he watched in frustration as the contracts went to others, many of them larger, white-owned firms with Washington political ties.

"That just doesn't smell right," said Jenkins, president of AJA Management and Technical Services Inc., noting the region has a higher percentage of blacks and minority-owned businesses than other areas of the country.

To speed aid, many requirements normally attached to government contracting were waived by Congress and the administration. The result: far more no-bid contracts have gone to businesses that had a relationship with the government.

There also was an easing of affirmative action rules for contractors and a suspension of a "prevailing wage" law that black lawmakers and business people believe will hurt the disproportionately large number of black hourly workers in the region.

"It sends a bad message," said Harry Alford, president of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. "What they're basically saying to the minority in New Orleans is, 'We'll make it harder for you to find a job. And if you do, we'll make sure you get paid less.' "

The Department of Homeland Security, whose FEMA division handles most of the contracts, said it is committed to hiring smaller, disadvantaged firms. But many of the no-bid awards were given to known players who could quickly provide help in an emergency situation, spokesman Larry Orluskie said.

"It was about saving lives, protecting property, and going to who you go to, to get what you need," he said.

President Bush has met privately with NAACP President Bruce Gordon to discuss the racial component of the disaster. And Alford said he will meet with Bush sometime soon to talk about improving opportunities for minority contractors.