In yet another exposé of how this administration allows their big business buddies to bleed America by contracting with the government in no-bid and cost-plus deals, the Washington Post exposes just how Halliburton subsidiary KBR was allowed to contract certain rebuilding tasks after Hurricanes Katrina and Ivan on a cost-plus basis, and bill the government for shoddy and substandard work for which an additional $200K had to be spent to have a different contractor fix KBR's foulups.
This is, of course, the same KBR that has been responsible for sloppily-building showers in Iraq that have electrified and killed several of our troops serving there.
You have also no doubt read about the 2004 firing of Charles M. Smith, the senior civilian overseeing the Pentagon's KBR contract for his decision to hold off payment of $1 Billion in unsubstantiated KBR bills.
Kinda makes you mad, and ask "why"?... more after the jump...
Part of the WaPo blog entry cited above states:
Among the inspector general's findings:
-- KBR awarded sole-source or limited competition subcontracts that overpaid hourly rates to roofers and paid $4.1 million worth of services and meals that should have cost only $1.7 million
-- The Navy entered into an illegal "cost-plus-percentage-of-cost" contract with KBR, the audit found. As a result, higher costs meant higher profit and KBR was rewarded for "inefficiency and non-economical performance."
-- KBR was paid nearly all of the contract amounts despite "marginal-to-average performance," the audit found.
The audit recommended the Navy try to recoup about $8.4 million in "excessive" equipment lease payments and material profits and noted several over-the-top costs, including employees getting $540 per month for cell phone charges during roof repairs; $720 per month in gas charges despite existing payment of work site fuel expenses; and expensive meals, including steak and eggs (full meal prices were redacted from the report).
The NYTimes article about Mr. Smith's firing says, in part"
Army auditors had determined that KBR lacked credible data or records for more than $1 billion in spending, so Mr. Smith refused to sign off on the payments to the company. "They had a gigantic amount of costs they couldn’t justify," he said in an interview. "Ultimately, the money that was going to KBR was money being taken away from the troops, and I wasn’t going to do that."
So, this begs a VERY SERIOUS question - WHEN are we going to hold this administration's "procurement buddies" (i.e. Halliburton, KBR, etc) accountable for their fleecing of the taxpayers' dollars accomplished with the collusion of the Administration's senior officials, and WHEN will the money be returned to the Government coffers (i.e. back to the American people?)?
It's TIME to restore ORDER back into every aspect of our Government's operation, including fiscal sanity in our Pentagon procurement policies. Time to allow sunshine back into the federal contracting procedures, and STOP letting administration officials manipulate sweetheart contracts to make their rich friends richer.