» Agility/PWC/GCC Ms Sparky

You’ll pay for that & other news

Posted on: January 22nd, 2012 at 8:09 am — by Forseti

“When I served four years in the military, it wasn’t so that Bechtel, KBR, Halliburton and all the other corporations could make money and buy politicians to further drag out the war and create policies that support all that,” Bodell said. “I fought for the Constitution, for representation and for freedom of the American people.” ~ Kole Bodell, Salt Lake City, UT

Ex-officer indicted for coercing soldiers
(Windsor Star) – January 21, 2012 – A former Danish officer has been indicted for threatening to send troops under his command to the Afghan front line if they refuse to pay a fine for certain errors, website Politiken said Friday.

The 33-year-old, in charge of a royal guard unit in Afghanistan, “put pressure on a number of soldiers in Afghanistan daily to contribute to a system of illegal financial penalties,” said the website.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in Agility/PWC/GCC, GOV. CONTRACTORS, Indictments, Convictions & Arrests, KBR, LOGCAP III - KBR, Politics, Security Contractors, U.S. Army. Tags: ADS Tactical Inc., Agility DGS Holdings, Agility/PWC/GCC, Anham LLC, Bechtel, Bob Dix, Boeing, Bonny Island LNG, Camp Bastion, Carl Icahn, CIA, Corezing International Pte Ltd, DHS, Dick Cheney, DoD*, FCPA, FCPA Violations, George W. Bush, Guantanamo Bay, Halliburton, Icahn Partners LP, JGC Corporation, Judge Pablo Rafael Ruz Gutierrez, Juniper Networks, KBR, Kole Bodell, Lockheed Martin, Luke Hillier, Mabey & Johnson, Mabey Engineering Holdings Ltd., Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, Maj. Gen. Michael Lehnert, Marubeni Corporation, Michael W. Tutwiler, Move One Logistics, Navistar, Northrop Grumman, Osen-Hunter, Oshkosh Corp., Pentagon, PIPA, Rudolf L. Cheung, SOPA, Technip S.A., Triple Canopy, Virginia Army National Guard. No Comments »

Fraud Fight Has U.S. Seeking to Ban Record Number of Suppliers

Posted on: December 27th, 2011 at 11:46 am — by Forseti

Wishing the Government Accountability Office and the agencies in charge of oversight, a banner year of suspensions and debarments in 2012. Here’s hoping the DoJ grows a set in the new year and prosecutes those who have “gotten away with it” for far too long. Honestly Eric (Holder) you can’t possibly believe the American taxpayer is gullible enough to believe the only criminals making bank in Iraq and Afghanistan are the handful of petty criminals you have indicted to date?
~ Ms Sparky & Forseti

(Money News) – December 27, 2011 – The Obama administration, under pressure from Congress to weed out government suppliers for ethics violations or poor performance, has proposed to ban almost as many contractors this year as President George W. Bush did in his entire second term.

Federal agencies have proposed blocking 1,006 companies and individuals from contracting so far this year, as well as asking a judge to ban a unit of food-processing giant Cargill Inc. of Minneapolis, in a process known as debarment. That is 16 percent more than the 868 contractors that U.S. agencies proposed to block in all of 2010, and only 70 fewer than the 1,076 contractors that U.S. agencies sought to debar under Bush from 2005 to 2008, according to data provided by the General Services Administration.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Agility Unit Sues U.S. to Lift Freeze on Military Contracts (with links to court filings)

Posted on: December 7th, 2011 at 2:21 pm — by Forseti

Laurence Viele Davidson – (Bloomberg) – December 7, 2011 – A unit of Agility, the Kuwaiti storage and logistics provider, sued to lift a freeze on government contracts imposed after the company was accused of defrauding the U.S.

Agility Defense & Government Logistics Services called the freeze “capricious” in a filing in federal court in Alabama. The Defense Logistics Agency, or DLA, an arm of the U.S. Department of Defense, suspended the unit from new contracts 10 days after Agility was indicted in November 2009.

Agility, which supplied food to U.S. forces in Iraq, paid premium prices for goods to inflate its profits, according to the indictment. Agility, formerly known in Kuwait as Public Warehousing Co., pleaded not guilty in August to the allegations in federal court in Atlanta.

DLA acknowledged that Alabama-based Agility Defense & Government, or DGS, faced “no allegations” of wrongdoing, the company said in the complaint. DGS’s business “has collapsed” since the indictment and its workforce has shrunk to fewer than 50 employees from about 1,200, according to the complaint.

DLA’s “shifting, inconsistent and unsubstantiated rationales for suspension render its continued suspension of DGS and Agility International arbitrary and capricious,” the company said. The claims of unfairness were brought under the Administrative Procedures Act.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in Agility/PWC/GCC, GOV. CONTRACTORS, Indictments, Convictions & Arrests, LAWSUITS. Tags: Agility, Agility DGS Holdings, Agility/PWC/GCC, DLA*, Jim Cox, Joe Cosumano, Normand V. Lussier, Richard Deane Jr., U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash. 4 Comments »

Blacklisted contractor continues receiving government money through Haiti contracts

Posted on: December 2nd, 2011 at 8:43 am — by Forseti

Despite the blacklist designation Agility was able to secure government funding for work in Haiti through a joint venture. An analysis of the Federal Procurement Data System shows that Contingency Response Services LLC (CRS) has received over $16 million in government funding from the Department of the Navy since the earthquake. The particularly bland sounding Contingency Response Services consists of three defense contractor giants — Dyncorp, Parsons and Agility Logistics (then PWC logistics).

Jake Johnston, lead researcher at Center for Economic and Policy Research – (The Hill) – December 2, 2011 – Following the devastating earthquake in Haiti on January 12, 2010, the U.S. launched an unprecedented relief effort, eventually totaling over one billion dollars. But the lead agency in the immediate aftermath was not the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), as is typically the case when our nation provides humanitarian assistance, but the military. Just after the earthquake, the U.S. had over 20,000 troops in Haiti. Of the $1.1 billion in humanitarian funding from the U.S. in 2010, nearly half was channeled to the Department of Defense.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in Agility/PWC/GCC, GOV. CONTRACTORS, Indictments, Convictions & Arrests, Politics, Reports & Investigations, Security Contractors. Tags: Agility/PWC/GCC, Contingency Response Services LLC (CRS), DoD*, DynCorp*, Excluded Parties List System (EPLS), Haiti, Parsons Corp., Parsons Global Services Inc., Parsons International Ltd., Secretary Hillary Clinton, U.S. Navy, USAID. No Comments »

Supreme Group Probed Over No-Bid Contracts to Feed Troops in Afghanistan

Posted on: November 28th, 2011 at 6:44 am — by Ms Sparky

Supreme Group, a king of U.S. military logistics, earned billions supplying food to troops in Afghanistan. Now, in a case reminiscent of Halliburton’s Iraq scandal, the contractor is under investigation for overbilling taxpayers. Aram Roston reports.

Aram Roston - (The Daily Beast) - November 27, 2011 - At first blush, Michael Jacques Gans doesn’t appear to be your typical defense contractor. An attorney by training, Gans spends his spare time racing a mint-condition, sky-blue Bugatti race car—vintage 1927—on tracks across Europe. He doesn’t reside inside Washington’s Beltway, preferring instead his home in Germany or a multimillion-dollar duplex on New York’s Fifth Avenue, overlooking Central Park.

And Supreme Group, the firm he co-owns with his German-born wife, Nina Von Steuben, and American businessman Stephen Orenstein, is hardly a household name in the U.S. with its main operations in the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Dubai. But inside Afghanistan, Supreme is a king of U.S. military logistics, performing a dizzying amount of wartime business that has earned the firm billions of dollars, easily enough to support a luxury lifestyle for its owners.

For the last six years, Supreme has imported all of the U.S military’s food into Afghanistan, and its contract was extended by the Pentagon in 2010 for two years and $4 billion without the normal competitive bidding. But that’s just part of its business. Supreme also runs military mess halls on Forward Operating Bases, trucks gasoline and diesel into Afghanistan from both Uzbekistan and Pakistan, and operates two warehouses that it boasts are now the largest structures in Afghanistan, dwarfing even the country’s ancient palaces. Since 2005, the company’s various Pentagon contracts in Afghanistan have been worth $8 billion.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in Agility/PWC/GCC, GOV. CONTRACTORS, Reports & Investigations. Tags: Agility/PWC/GCC, Dick Cheney, DLA*, Halliburton, Lt. Gen. Robert T. Dail, Michael Jacques Gans, Nina Von Steuben, Retired General's Club, Stephen Orenstein, Supreme Foodservice, Supreme Group USA. 8 Comments »

Kuwait’s Agility denies winning Canadian military contract

Posted on: October 11th, 2011 at 2:24 am — by Forseti

Firm says it did not win contract
Agility shares had rise for four straight sessions
Shares were suspended on Monday

Eman Goma – (Reuters) - Kuwait – October 11, 2011 – Kuwaiti logistics firm Agility on Tuesday denied reports that it had won a military contract worth up to $700 million that had sparked a four-day rally in the group’s stock, before trading was suspended.

“The firm wants to clarify that it is normal for it to compete on tenders and contracts within the context of its operations, and it always announces its deals according to the disclosures law,” Agility said in a statement on the Kuwaiti bourse website.

Kuwaiti daily newspaper al-Rai said in an unsourced report on Monday that information had been circulating that Agility won a military contract worth between $600 million and $700 million.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in Agility/PWC/GCC, Civilian Contractors, GOV. CONTRACTORS, Indictments, Convictions & Arrests. Tags: Agility/PWC/GCC, Canadian Forces (CF), Canadian Operational Support Command, Kuwait, Lieutenant-Commander John Nethercott. No Comments »

“Are contractors overcharging the government?” You have to ask, REALLY?

Posted on: October 6th, 2011 at 6:17 am — by Forseti

FOOD SERVICE MANAGEMENT CONTRACTS: ARE CONTRACTORS OVERCHARGING THE GOVERNMENT?

Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight

The federal government spends billions of dollars every year on contracts for food service management at military installations and bases, hospitals, and government buildings and through the federal school lunch program. The purpose of the hearing was to examine whether food service management contractors are withholding rebates, discounts, and credits which should be passed through to the federal government. The hearing reviewed examples of this practice and assess steps taken by agencies to ensure that contractors are in compliance with rebate requirements. The hearing also addressed the need for increased transparency, oversight, and accountability. ~Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Goverment Affairs

Click HERE to view the Hearing

Testimony by Charles Tiefer, Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law and Former Commissioner, Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan

October 06, 2011 - Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the subject of improper food service contracting with the United States government for our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am Professor of Law at the University of Baltimore Law School since 1995, and the author of a casebook on federal government contracting. n1 In 2008-2011, I have been a Commissioner on the statutorily chartered, federal Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, which held twenty-five hearings on problems in government contracting. I note that the chair, Senator Claire McCaskill, was a key sponsor of the legislation creating the Commission. My Commission could never have performed its work of looking into waste, fraud, and abuse in contracting without her absolutely crucial support and leadership.

(Read the rest of the story here…)