This should piss everyone off. --Laura, aka, whereabouts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Investigators: Millions in Iraq contracts never

finished

The audit released Sunday by Stuart Bowen Jr., the special inspector
general for Iraq reconstruction, provides the latest snapshot of an
uneven reconstruction effort that has cost U.S. taxpayers more than
$100 billion. It also comes as several lawmakers have said they want
the Iraqis to pick up more of the cost of reconstruction.
The special IG's review of 47,321 reconstruction projects worth
billions of dollars found that at least 855 contracts were terminated
by U.S. officials before their completion, primarily because of
unforeseen factors such as violence and excessive costs. About 112 of
those agreements were ended specifically because of the contractors'
actual or anticipated poor performance.
In addition, the audit said many reconstruction projects were being
described as complete or otherwise successful when they were not. In
one case, the U.S. Agency for International Development contracted with
Bechtel Corp.
in 2004 to construct a $50 million children's hospital in Basra, only
to "essentially terminate" the project in 2006 because of monthslong
delays.
But rather than terminate the project, U.S. officials modified the
contract to change the scope of the work. As a result, a U.S. database
of Iraq reconstruction contracts shows the project as complete "when in
fact the hospital was only 35 percent complete when work was stopped,"
said investigators in describing the practice of "descoping" as
frequent.
"Descoping is an appropriate process but does mask problem projects to the extent they occur," the audit states.
Responding, USAID in the report said it disagreed that its descoping
of the hospital project was "effectively a contract termination," but
that it had changed the work because of escalating costs and security
problems. Mark Tokola, the director of the Iraq transition assistance office, also responded that the database the IG's office reviewed of Iraq reconstruction contracts was incomplete.
Bowen's office said its review was preliminary and that it planned
follow-up reviews to investigate descoping more closely. Investigators
said they were also looking into whether contractors whose projects
were terminated by the U.S. government due to inadequate performance
might have been awarded new contracts later despite their poor records.
Investigators said the database they reviewed lacked full data on
projects such as those done by USAID, the State Department, and those
completed before 2006. But they said the figures cited in the report
offered a baseline in terms of unfinished Iraq reconstruction contracts.
"Adding contract terminations from these (other) sources would
certainly raise the number of terminated projects," the report states.
The audit comes amid renewed focus in recent months on potential
abuse in contracting government-wide, such as Iraq reconstruction. Last
year, congressional investigators said as much as $10 billion — or one
in six dollars — charged by U.S. contractors for Iraq reconstruction
were questionable or unsupported, and warned that significantly more
taxpayer money was at risk.
In recent weeks, Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., has been working with Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and Susan Collins,
R-Maine, on legislation that would restrict future reconstruction
dollars to loans instead of grants; require that Baghdad pay for fuel
used by American troops and take over U.S. payments to predominantly
Sunni fighters in the Awakening movement.
Danielle Brian, executive director of the watchdog group Project on
Government Oversight, said the latest audit report points to
significant U.S. taxpayer waste in current reconstruction efforts.
"The report paints a depressing picture of money being poured into
failed Iraq reconstruction projects — contractors are killed, projects
are blown up just before being completed, or the contractor just stops
doing the work," she said.
___
On the Net:
Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction:
https://www.sigir.mil/Default.aspx