Contracts questioned in Katrina recovery

[cal04]

Source: Associated Press

FEMA exposed taxpayers to significant waste — and possibly violated federal law — by awarding $3.6 billion worth of Hurricane Katrina contracts to companies with poor credit histories and bad paperwork, investigators say.

The new report by the Homeland Security Department's office of inspector general, released Monday, examines the propriety of 36 trailer contracts designated for small and local businesses in the stricken Gulf Coast region following the 2005 storm.

It found a haphazard competitive bidding process in which the winning contract prices were both unreasonably low and high. Moreover, FEMA did not take adequate legal steps to ensure that companies were small and locally operated, resulting in a questionable contract award to a large firm with ties to the Republican Party.

"Based on our analysis, we concluded that FEMA contracting officials exposed the agency to an unacceptable level of risk," according to the report by the office of inspector general Richard Skinner.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070423/ap_on_go_ot/katrina_contracts_7

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"This confirms what we already knew about FEMA — there was a staggering level of incompetence, and the victims of Katrina, as well as taxpayers, are taking it on the chin," Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record), D-N.D., who requested the audit, said Monday.

[htuttle]

1. "a staggering level of incompetence..."

Sounds more like graft and corruption to me.

Incompetents don't earn billions for their cronies by accident.

[uppityperson]

2. k&r (only 1 r so far?)