The Pentagon Inspector General (IG) released an audit finding that KBR, a former subsidiary of Halliburton, “overcharged the U.S. Navy for providing meals to workers and service personnel in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.” The audit found that the Navy “paid approximately $4.1 million for meals and services we calculate should have cost $1.7 million, more than a $2.3 million difference.”
The audit also found that KBR’s repairs of hurricane-damaged Navy facilities were “shoddy and substandard.” “[O]ne technical advisor alleged that the federal government ‘certainly paid twice’ for many KBR projects because of ‘design and workmanship deficiencies.’” The IG “recommended that the Navy try to recoup about $8.4 million in ‘excessive’ equipment lease payments and material profits, and another $1.4 million for more than 110,000 meals that were paid for and thrown away over a 34-day period.”
Yesterday, Charles Smith, an Army official who managed KBR’s Pentagon contract for work in Iraq, said he was fired “when he refused to approve paying more than $1 billion in questionable charges to KBR.” KBR “had a gigantic amount of costs they couldn’t justify,” he said.
This material was created for the Progress Report, the daily e-mail publication of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
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