Army Corps of Engineer is asked to explain award of New Orleans pump contract (JEB ALERT)

Army Corps of Engineer is asked to explain award of New Orleans pump contract
CAIN BURDEAU Associated Press Writer

(AP) - NEW ORLEANS-When the Army Corps of Engineers solicited bids for drainage pumps for New Orleans, it copied the specifications - typos and all - from the catalog of the manufacturer that ultimately won the $32 million (€23.52 million) contract, a review of documents by The Associated Press found.

The pumps, supplied by Moving Water Industries Corp. of Deerfield Beach, Florida, and installed at canals before the start of the 2006 hurricane season, proved to be defective, as the AP reported in March. The matter is under investigation by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.



In a letter dated April 13, Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana called on the Corps to look into how the politically connected company got the post-Hurricane Katrina contract. MWI employed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, President George W. Bush's brother, to market its pumps during the 1980s, and top MWI officials have been major contributors to the Republican Party.

While it may not be a violation of federal regulations to adopt a company's technical specifications, it is frowned on, especially for large jobs like the MWI contract, because it could give the impression the job was rigged for the benefit of a certain company, contractors familiar with Corps practices say.

http://news.findlaw.com/ap/o/51/05-01-2007/58be003a0cd64f7e.html

Capitalism doesn't work well without competition. What we've got here is what I've seen during my time working at corporations big and small, profit and not-for-profit: the wink and nod to a certain contractor while going through the motions of making it look like a fair tender process.

The difference is, it's our GOVERNMENT doing this with OUR money. And you can bet NOLA and the rest of us peons will pay for the resulting catastrophe.

You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours, scenerio. Competence be damned. Hell, it is only pumps to empty a city that is below sea level. sarcasm

On some program last night, tv, it showed the construction jobs in Iraq that were complete failures. They could not show one that was functioning!