Hydrablog

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/washington/28spending.html
July 28, 2006
Report Finds Vast Waste for Security
By ERIC LIPTON [DHS] [another report documenting their lax procurement practices] [making chertoff look like a real chump] [how he’s going to rehabilitate his image in anyone’s guess] [*********************] [use nsc ms]
WASHINGTON, July 27 — Lax management of contracting at the Department of Homeland Security has cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, the leaders of a House committee said Thursday, demanding that the department act immediately to eliminate management problems.
The criticism, at a hearing of the House Government Reform Committee, followed the release of a bipartisan report in which the committee identified 32 department contracts that investigators said “have experienced significant overcharges, wasteful spending or mismanagement.”
Most of the troubled contracts had been publicly identified before, and several were let by agencies now within Homeland Security that existed before the department, created in November 2002, began operations in January 2003. The problem contracts included a $104 million deal in 2002 to help hire airport screeners, which ended up costing $741 million, and a $508 million pact to install and maintain luggage inspection equipment, which ballooned to $1.8 billion.
“A fractured purchasing system is hobbling the department’s ability to meet core missions in border security, emergency management, information sharing and other key issues,” said the committee’s chairman, Representative Tom Davis, Republican of Virginia.
The committee’s senior Democrat, Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, said the report documented a “pattern of reckless spending, poor planning and ineffective oversight.”
Elaine C. Duke, the department’s chief procurement officer, said she was hiring more staff members, improving training and taking other steps to address the shortcomings.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company