I agree! I was trying to explain why these shops exist and are used in the general case, while also noting that this was a bad call here.

They were probably picked, to be frank, because they're the people that the folks in charge of picking a developer already had in their rolodex. Private organizations can do RFPs, but don't have to, and if you don't fully understand how bad a software project can go sideways, it's not going to be something you care too much about.