» 2011 » November Ms Sparky

USACE awards KBR, Louis Berger and IAP $490M electrical contracts in Afghanistan…..Really?

Posted on: November 8th, 2011 at 12:21 pm — by Ms Sparky

On September 30, 2011 KBR, along with Berger/Cummins JV and IAP Worldwide Services, Inc. were awarded contracts by the The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to provide electrical services for contingency operations in Afghanistan. This $490 million dollar contract is to perform electrical services for prime power operations in support of any location within the Afghan Theater of Operations. This contract supports any and all U.S. facilities in Afghanistan, as required, up to the maximum capacity of $500 million.

The contract includes generator set Operations and Maintenance (O&M), preparation, transport, installation, preventive maintenance, scheduled maintenance, emergency maintenance, service, fueling, relocating and recovering generator sets, associated fuel systems (if required), and all transmission/distribution system maintenance including the underground or overhead system at the U.S. Facilities from the generators to the transformer and associated switchgear.

USACE, who has had their own employee issues lately, acts as if there are no other contractors out there who can do this work! Not to mention, I suspect these three contractors will load up on cheap third world or Afghan labor to perform this work instead of licensed electricians, further propagating US sponsored human trafficking.

Let’s take a look at these contractors one by one. (Read the rest of the story here…)

Senate Investigates Counterfeit Parts in Military Equipment

Posted on: November 8th, 2011 at 6:56 am — by Forseti

Senator Carl Levin

Washington, DC - November 8, 2011 – A Senate Armed Services Committee investigation found over a million suspect parts in the Pentagon’s supply chain, mostly from China. Committee leaders say the counterfeit parts are a danger to U.S. troops and cost taxpayers.

Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) and ranking Republican John McCain (R-AZ) gave several examples during a Monday news conference where the Defense Department had to replace faulty electronics at taxpayer expense. One was counterfeit transistors in a helicopter night vision system. In another instance a cockpit video display on an Air Force C-27J transport plane had bogus memory chips that could cause it to display the wrong information.

Testifying at a hearing today on the matter will be the head of the Missile Defense Agency, as well as officials from defense contracting companies Raytheon, L-3 Communications, and Boeing. Additional testimonies will include a government investigator and representatives of companies that distribute the potentially faulty components. (Click HERE for original article) (Click HERE for background Memo) (Click HERE for webcast of Hearing)

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Short changing taxpayers and other news

Posted on: November 6th, 2011 at 7:05 am — by Forseti

The State Department has never faced a challenge anywhere close to this magnitude, and I am concerned that the current plan could therefore expose billions of taxpayers’ dollars supporting diplomatic and development goals in Iraq to the risk of being lost, wasted or stolen.

While the State Department will continue to rely initially on the Defense Department for some basic capabilities, it will ultimately turn to an army of contractor personnel to provide services ranging from essential physical security to fact-of-life support, such as food and laundry. Indeed, of the 16,000 U.S. personnel that will comprise the U.S. civilian presence in Iraq after this year, it is estimated that nearly 14,000 of them will be contractors. ~Senator John McCain, letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta

Sikorsky Made Excess Profit on Pentagon Parts Sold to Army
Tony Capaccico – (Bloomberg) – November 4, 2011 - Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. made excess profit selling the U.S. Army helicopter parts that it bought at a lower price from the Pentagon’s primary supply agency, the Defense Department’s inspector general says.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in Civilian Contractors, GOV. CONTRACTORS, Indictments, Convictions & Arrests, Politics. Tags: Advanced C4 Solutions Inc., AMCOM, Andrew Bennett, Ark Systems Inc., Boeing, Bruce Burton, CASEVAC, Christopher Castro, David A. Chaisson, DCAA*, DCMA*, DLA*, DoD*, DoDIG*, Donald Brewer, DOS*, Enterprise and Deployment LLC. (E&D), Eyak Technology, EyakTek, GAO, Gen. John R. Allen, Grant E. Bibb, Hamid Karzai, International Security Assistance Force, Iron Bow Technologies, James Brown, James E. Murphy, James McKinney, Jesus Torres-Alvarez, John Wilkerson, Joseph J. Marak, KARTA Technologies Inc., Maj. Gen. Peter Fuller, MED Trends Inc., Michael A. Hase, NATO, Neil Gordon, Nova Datacom LLC, Paul Escobar, Rajesh Kumar Malik, Richard Garcia, Robert A. Riddell, Roger Malik, Ryan International Airlines, Secretary Leon Panetta, Sen. John McCain, Sherri Lynn Brewer, Sikorsky, Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., Superior Communications Inc. (SCSI), Theodoros N. Hallas, United Technologies Corp., USACE, USAID, Wayne E. Kepple, Xavier Aves. 3 Comments »

Trafficking in persons – DoD has an App for that but not much else

Posted on: November 4th, 2011 at 6:40 am — by Ms Sparky

“Human trafficking by federal overseas contractors is widespread and never punished,” said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (Va.), the top Democrat on the panel. “Not a single case of human trafficking, sexual assault, wage theft or related crimes has been prosecuted by the Department of Justice, and only a single case has even been referred for prosecution by the Department of Defense. Neither the Army and Air Force Exchange Service nor any other component of DoD or the State Department has suspended or debarred a single federal contractor for human trafficking, even though such abuses are routine.”
~Joe Davidson, Washington Post, November 2, 2011

Agencies blasted for ignoring contractor role in human trafficking

Charles S. Clark – (GovExec) – November 3, 2011 – The State and Defense departments are doing too little to help prosecute criminals working for U.S. subcontractors who trick foreign nationals into indentured servitude and prostitution in and around Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, a House panel was told on Wednesday.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of desperate workers from nations such as Bangladesh, Nepal and the Fiji Islands in recent years have fallen victim to deceitful traffickers who lure them to war zones with the promise of steady work, but then force them to pay commissions and borrow from loan sharks before trapping them in degrading jobs in unsafe and unsanitary conditions. Yet not a single prosecution or contractor termination has been documented, witnesses said, a state of affairs that agency representatives could do little to explain. (Read the rest of the story here…)

Viktor Bout convicted of conspiring to kill Americans in South America, what about those who hired, aided & abetted him in Iraq?

Posted on: November 3rd, 2011 at 5:32 am — by Forseti

In a letter date-stamped on the eve of jury deliberations, eight members of the Russian Parliament members warned “Your Honor, Madam Judge!” that convicting Viktor Bout could “cause harm to the interests and reputation of the Russian Federation and to previously reached bilateral agreements within the framework of the ‘reset’ policy of Russian-American relations.”
~Adam Klasfeld, (CN), November 2, 2011

International Arms Dealer Viktor Bout Convicted in New York of Terrorism Crimes

Bout Convicted on All Four Counts, Including Conspiring to Kill Americans and Conspiring to Provide Material Support to Terrorists
(DoJ) – NEW YORK – November 2, 2011 – International arms dealer Viktor Bout was found guilty today of conspiring to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) – a designated foreign terrorist organization based in Colombia – to be used to kill Americans in Colombia, announced the Department of Justice.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in Indictments, Convictions & Arrests, Politics. Tags: Arms Dealer, Convictions, DEA, FARC, Thailand, The Merchant of Death*, Victor Bout, Viktor Bout. No Comments »

Poor Contracting Oversight Supports Human Trafficking; Erodes U.S. “Moral Standing”

Posted on: November 2nd, 2011 at 1:31 pm — by Ms Sparky

Dana Liebelson – (POGO) – November 2, 2011 – U.S. taxpayers are inadvertently funding human trafficking and worker abuse because of the federal government’s poor oversight of contractors in war zones, POGO Director of Investigations Nick Schwellenbach told a Congressional panel today.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

POGO: Wartime Contracting Commission’s Move to Seal Records for 20 Years: Just Plain Wrong

Posted on: November 2nd, 2011 at 1:15 pm — by Forseti

Commissioners hear testimony at the May 4, 2009, hearing. Left to right: Dov Zakheim, Linda Gustitus, Robert Henke, Grant Green, Co-Chairman Michael Thibault, Charles Tiefer, Co-Chairman Christopher Shays, Clark Kent Ervin

Jake Wiens – (POGO) – November 1, 2011 – The recently dissolved Commission on Wartime Contracting (CWC) did just about everything right. Created in the spirit of the Truman Commission, the CWC identified as much as $60 billion in contracting-related waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the process, the CWC held 25 hearings, released 8 reports, and published detailed recommendations intended to prevent waste and fraud from occurring in future overseas contingencies. Perhaps most important, the bipartisan commission was unanimous in its findings and recommendations, notable in a city known for its partisan gridlock.

But the Commission’s decision to seal its internal records for 20 years is just plain wrong. The decision, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, blocks the public and watchdog groups from using the CWC’s source material to build upon the important work of the Commission and to help prevent waste and fraud in overseas contingency contracting in the near term.

Clark Irwin, the CWC’s spokesman, told the Wall Street Journal the seal was justified because “there is sensitive information in there.” He cited proprietary company information, attorney work products, and classified documents as examples of such records. Another source told the Journal that the expectation that the CWC’s records would be sealed was necessary to encourage sources to speak candidly.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in Commission on Wartime Contracting (CWC), GOV. CONTRACTORS, Reports & Investigations. Tags: Clark Irwin, Commission on Wartime Contracting, National Archives and Records Administration, POGO. 1 Comment »

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