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On July 26, 2010 the Commission on Wartime Contracting co-chaired by Commissioners Christopher Shays and Michael J. Thibault held a hearing on subcontracting risks in combat zones entitled Subcontracting: Who’s Minding the Store? I think this Commission could be one of the best things that has happened to contractor oversight!
Panel 1 (click HERE for Panel 1 vide0 02:00)
Edward Harrington, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army (Procurement) Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics and Technology)
Patrick Fitzgerald, Director Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA)
Cathy Read, Department of State – Office of Acquisition Management
Drew W. Luten III, Bureau for Management, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
Panel 2 (click HERE for Panel 2 video 01:52)
Cheryl Ritondale, Global Director, Procurement and Supply Management – KBR
Norm Powell, Acquistition Executive, Fluor Corporation’s Government Group
John Supina, Senior Vice President – Business Systems – Dyncorp International LLC
Chris Taylor, Chief Executive Officer – Mission Essential Personnel, LLC
Panel 3 (click HERE for Panel 3 video 01:44)
Fred Brune (CH2M Hill; subcontractor to DynCorp)
Perry Dalby (Tamimi Global; subcontractor to KBR)
Paul Hinks (Symbion Power Services; subcontractor to Louis Berger/Black & Veatch)
Mark Kleckner (McNeil Technologies; subcontractor to DynCorp)
Marc Krens (The Diplomat Group; subcontractor to Fluor)
Jerry Torres (Torres Advanced Enterprise Solutions; subcontractor to MEP)
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Other Related Posts From Ms Sparky
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- CWC Commissioners give award winning performance at Hearing
- Saudi firm won’t turn over records to Pentagon in bribery probe
- The Struggle to Police Foreign Subcontractors in Iraq and Afghanistan
- Security company CEO is a “no-show” at CWC hearing
$ 6 Billion unaccounted for. 60 U.S. Army Contracting Officers have gone to jail for taking kickbacks, bribes and general Agency corruption that seems to have been practically taught in their contracting circles. The U.S. Army Contracting Command is further evidence of a joke and the corruption continues under the leadership of Jeff Parsons, Executive Director, and Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody and Lt. Gen. James H. Pillsbury.
The evidence of the incompetents are still there. Senator Clair McCaskill – it is time to scrap the Army even having a credit card. Centralize all contracting for the military under DCMA. Everyone realizes that DCMA was a Cheney and Ambassador Bremer puppet.
How much more evidence does the Subcommittee for Contracting Oversight need.
The latest example of corruption out of Camp Arifjan (are your reading this Generals of ACC) is the systemic pattern of drawing in DoD Contractors bids and within 2 hours of bidding closing – a CACI (non-warranted) [unwarranted by Congress] issuing an amendment. Why Generals should a DoD Contractor give their bid to another DoD contractor (CACI). Camp Arifjan has proven that their computer servers have not only been compromised, but they have an (Army) Sgt in custody there for unauthorized data entry and disemination of classified material. It is a National Security case. “Manning had already been sifting through the classified networks for months”
The servers are not secure and it appears our bids can be read by anyone and compromised. The Contracting Branch Chief not looking into this pattern of last minute amendments is not actually surprising. How many of Camp Arifjan’s 30 jailed Contracting Officers were at one time Contracting Branch Chiefs. It is a systemic and on-going failure of procurement integrity. What integrity.
The Air Force are in a close second with Vandenberg’s 386th ECONS being caught recently attempting to award to a company on the Federal Governments Excluded Parties Listing System. I believe their commander was removed 2 months early.
The report is no surprise – what is a surprise is that the Subcommittee for Contracting Oversight does nothing.
It seems that the Kuwait Contracting Command thought it best to CANCEL THE SOLICITATION after the exposure of Camp Arifjan’s pattern of extending solicitations within 2 – 3 hours of bids being due in. Issuing illegally formatted Amendments that don’t have 1/10th of the required elements of an Amendment or even on the correct form.
http://www.scribd.com/full/35065864?access_key=key-23vt0kbvxg0p0tbzkdo1
Manning case is:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/leak/
Highlights of the Army’s lack of security of their own classified material let alone our bids.
“Hillary Clinton, and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public,” Manning wrote.
When Manning told Lamo that he leaked a quarter-million classified embassy cables, Lamo contacted the Army, and then met with Army CID investigators
He claimed to have been rummaging through classified military and government networks for more than a year and said that the networks contained “incredible things,
Manning took credit for a number of other disclosures.
The networks, he said, were both “air gapped” from unclassified networks, but the environment at the base made it easy to smuggle data out.
“[I] listened and lip-synced to Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’ while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history,” he added later. ”Weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counter-intelligence, inattentive signal analysis
—————————————-
The kid seems like a whistle-blower from what I have read. But he proves out [ and I think the release of 92,000 pages of classified information ] proves out that the Army cannot even handle computer servers. They subcontract out Congressionally mandated Contracting Officer duties and they have a Contracting Command !! And 3 years on from Major John Cockerham, we have no procurement integrity in Kuwait.
Anyone remember 2006 in Arifjan when the whole DOL, DRMO, DFAC and DRMO? All of DRMO was relieved and sent home, The DOL from top to bottom was corrupt, the Col committed suicide and the Sgt Major as well as a number of other soldiers. I think the only one they kept alive for prosecution was the XO. The commander for the retrograde committed suicide, the COR for GMASS went home to be greeted by CID,this is just 4 1/2 years ago and they don’t seem to have cleaned up at all. Committees, investigations, hand wringing and everyone acts surprised at each revelation as if everything has been smooth until now. If the oversight is truely that clueless they need to revise thie hiring standards. Start banning civilian managers and army officer by name from future work and you might get some clean up working.
Did you notice how quietly the ineffective PARC,
Colonel Shane Dietrich, quietly left his position? Here are the rules that DLA, USAF, and the Army are to be following. It is the PARC who tells the other Agencies operating in Kuwait what the rules are.
The 386th ECONS (Contracting Squadron from Vandenberg AFB) are on record saying the rules don’t apply to them.
http://www.scribd.com/full/34813760?access_key=key-ede52joik88fbbkrl8z
They even tried to award to a company that has been suspended since 2009 and thumb their nose at competition.
http://www.scribd.com/full/34333877?access_key=key-vd1v6gvimgkhzfcjsxc
Notice – the Mail Porter Service is off of FBO now and the 386th ECONS commander, Major McCabe has been sent packing.
http://www.scribd.com/full/34816298?access_key=key-1hl59jvyn840kc41gr9u
http://www.scribd.com/full/34812870?access_key=key-1k7uvsz1p6k01c7pvwm4
The Air Force, although having a Contracting School are now under investigation for their procurement conduct in Kuwait.
Notice that we are already reading about Air Force Contracting Officers in Afghanistan being indicted.
PARC (Principle Assistant Responsible for Contracting) for the Theater. Iraq, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and all other theater countries.
http://www.scribd.com/full/34969407?access_key=key-7mb8p6urpl1uan5izya
CSA is really getting crazier. They are firing personnel that are really working and people that are not doing anything and just making money are the ones that keep in the company. Taking for example, Michael Best, PMD Manager, he is the one of the very few manager’s that are really working, unlike Melvin Ford, Vickie Baxter that are not really doing anything but just to goop off. You will see Vickie in a week of work for just two days and when she comes to work, she and Melvin will be both busy looking for what to gossip. They played buddy buddy roles to promote personnel. These both managers’ did a time sheet fraud. They seldom put sick hours when they leave early from work and still put 10 working hours on their timesheet. I’ve heard it from employees talking about this so I’m not the one only knowing about it. It’s just nobody are brave enough to come out as they are all afraid, these two are somehow powerful with a lot of connections inside CSA, that even they messed so much, they somehow slide on it.
One more example is Marites Wilkinson, she did a lot of timesheet fraud. A lot of times she will say she’s in one Camp location but in reality she is already in her apartment. I have seen she swapping property items, changing serial number and property items and replacing the serial number on some FOI’s that management has no approval or instruction to do so. Hope they will really do an investigation on these kinds of employees, hope that CSA will really see who are supposed to stay and supposed to go.
That’s normal operating procedure, Don Bedea CSA project manager is a prime example of misconduct on two legs from sexual harassement to multiple DUIs in Kuwait a dry country. In company vehicles inclding accidents. And they just give him more positions at 400K a year. Obviously being an incompetent, unethical manager on a DOD contract is very lucrative. Remnds me of Rick Reuter former Afghanistan country manager for KBR.
Current lack of Procurement integrity and bids being compromised can be now blamed on MG Joe Bass and Colonel Roger ( figure-head of the PARC)
An amendment to a solicitation was issued with just 2 hours to bid due-in time by an a DoD Contractor from CACI when Federal Acquisition Regulations are clear – Amendments are issued by Contracting Officers. Further, an Amendment has specific elements and is on a SF Form 30. This was a Word Doc and had none of the required elements.
http://www.scribd.com/full/35065864?access_key=key-23vt0kbvxg0p0tbzkdo1
Just in case Colonel Rogers and MG Bass need some refresher training that the Army Contracting Command don’t seem to be giving them, here is what should be in an Amendment:
15.206 Amending the solicitation.
(a) When, either before or after receipt of proposals, the Government changes its requirements or terms and conditions, the contracting officer shall amend the solicitation. (Rogers and Bass – do you see the word “Contracting Officer” ?)
(b) Amendments issued before the established time and date for receipt of proposals shall be issued to all parties receiving the solicitation.
(c) Amendments issued after the established time and date for receipt of proposals shall be issued to all offerors that have not been eliminated from the competition.
(d) If a proposal of interest to the Government involves a departure from the stated requirements, the contracting officer shall amend the solicitation, provided this can be done without revealing to the other offerors the alternate solution proposed or any other information that is entitled to protection (see 15.207(b) and 15.306(e)).
(e) If, in the judgment of the contracting officer, based on market research or otherwise, an amendment proposed for issuance after offers have been received is so substantial as to exceed what prospective offerors reasonably could have anticipated, so that additional sources likely would have submitted offers had the substance of the amendment been known to them, the contracting officer shall cancel the original solicitation and issue a new one, regardless of the stage of the acquisition.
(f) Oral notices may be used when time is of the essence. The contracting officer shall document the contract file and formalize the notice with an amendment (see Subpart 4.5, Electronic Commerce in Contracting).
Colonel Rogers – you are the PARC and in charge of CACI’s contract. MG Bass, you are where the buck stops – at least who Senator Clair McCaskill will be asking questions of)
(g) At a minimum, the following information should be included in each amendment:
(1) Name and address of issuing activity.
(2) Solicitation number and date.
(3) Amendment number and date.
(4) Number of pages.
(5) Description of the change being made.
(6) Government point of contact and phone number (and electronic or facsimile address, if appropriate).
(7) Revision to solicitation closing date, if applicable.
We DoD Contractors expect that only a warranted contracting officer will be conducting solicitations and issuing amendments and that it will be done according to the Federal Acquisition Regulations.
This may not be at the level of high notice but it is interesting none the less. Fluor has a policy about non combat use. They are vague as to weapons. Back in the middle of June, a manager was helping the 102nd fire mortar rounds at the Taliban. All he received was a right up. Now if the morter crew had miss aimed a round or two and killed civilians there would be political fallout and press reporting on this. Then the company would have been dragged into the mess. I can see that if the enemy is cutting the wire one may help by passing ammo and other such items. But to be active with the US Army, hmmm? John Hales received a pass on this one by a write up.The Army did make a report about this so this is a documented incident.This was in Afghanistan btw.
This is so true about CSA and especially PMD. Management there is a joke, non-existent if you ask me. These two Ford and Baxter couldn’t manage a S#@t factory. They lack professionalism, leadership skills and even job skills (especially Baxter who never comes to work for various BS reasons).These two are the biggest cowards around.They try to intimidate their employees with their power. Threatening to send people here or there because they aren’t a part of the ass kissing clique. From my understanding i don’t think there’s an ass kissing clause in CSA contract, therefore NO ONE is privy to do such.Though Ford is in charge, but Baxter is the puppet master and Ford is the puppet.Very Very Sad. Now that things are coming to the light i hope everyone sees them for what they really are NO DAMN GOOD. The cover ups and the idiocrasies are so deplorable. The sad part is each of them thinks they are above the law and fail to realize that when put separate i guarantee they will throw each other under the bus if it came down to it. But it seems at CSA you get honored and promote by how much u F*** up as oppose to how much good work you do.In order to understand the dumb logic they use you have to turn your common sense off b/c these fools don’t have any of that. Believe me i could go on for days about how jacked up CSA is as company and how PMD is a screwed up too, but i think there wouldn’t be enough time. Thats a full time job in itself. There day is coming and i hope they all get whats due to them.
Has anyone noticed lately that there have not been any DCMAs around JAF lately? They are out at the FOBs but not in “the pit”, hmmm? Have the DCMA been dupe by some BS? Has anyone noticed that Maximo has not kicked out PMs for HVAC for June, July, Aug until recently. This is a requirement for Logcap 4. Has anyone noticed that there are not too many people with Universal licenses? Yet people are signing off on work so that Fluor can be paid for the work. People who do not have Universals are doing the signing, hmmm? Is a Level 3 Car due Fluor? Seems to be maybe the USG is tired of the excuses and as some items are mission critical and failure seems to be the only option available. This is what happens when you keep the prior company’s management in place that continues to disregard the concerns of the staff. By this , we were told not to question any order written or verbal and to just do it and this was at a Supervisors meeting. If one thought the materials Yard was bad under KBR one should look at Fluor. Fluor will probably go the way of KBR but with a bigger bang.
I forgot to mention that the PMs not generated for months was for Camp Duffman at JAF, sorry about this.
Fluor is worse than KBR I did not even want to transition to them but I had no choice it was that or go home. Long run I am home now. About to go drive a truck as soon as Fluor Government Group will release my work data. By the way it took KBR (SEII) only one call for verification of employment. And the trucking company has been trying FGG for over 2 weeks now.
Interesting summary of the company on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Essential_Personnel