Audit: FEMA Wasted Millions On No-Bid Katrina Contracts

Source: Associated Press

(09-10) 15:04 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --

The government wasted millions of dollars on four no-bid contracts it handed out for Hurricane Katrina work, including paying $20 million for a camp for evacuees that was never inspected and proved to be unusable, investigators say.

A report by the Homeland Security Department's office of inspector general, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, is the latest to detail mismanagement in the multibillion-dollar Katrina hurricane recovery effort, which investigators have said wasted at least $1 billion.

The review examined temporary housing contracts awarded without competition to Shaw Group Inc., Bechtel Group Inc., CH2M Hill Companies Ltd. and Fluor Corp. in the days immediately before and after the August 2005 storm that smashed into the U.S. Gulf Coast.

It found that FEMA wasted at least $45.9 million on the four contracts that together were initially worth $400 million. FEMA subsequently raised the total amounts for the four contracts twice, both times without competition, to $2 billion and then $3 billion.

FEMA did not always properly review the invoices submitted by the four companies, exposing taxpayers to significant waste and fraud, investigators wrote. In many cases, the agency also issued open-ended contract instructions for months without clear guidelines on what work was needed to be done and the appropriate charges.

"We question how FEMA determined that the amounts invoiced were allowable and reasonable," the IG report states, warning that its review was limited in scope so that additional waste and fraud might yet to be found.

Read more: http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080910/NEWS/80910026

agenda for bankrupting the United States so they can do away with all social programs created under FDR, including social security. They must know about such agenda.

they are promoted and rewarded! :grr:

Then you're put up for sacrifice as the * admin hides. :grr:

Too "inept" to help the people who were marooned in New Orleans, but very very busy setting up the fraudulent contracts with their buddies at Bechtel et al.

More evidence that their neglect of New Orleans was deliberate, not just incompetence. No wonder Brownie though it was all a huge joke. It was - to them.

and in other continuing coverage, the bastids are still stealing billions right under our noses on just about anything you want to name.

where's the oversight, millions squandered during the last years, no accountability

Or as we used to say growing up in Indiana, "No Duh!":banghead: