Monday, July 23, 2007
Eagle Global Logistics 2nd guilty plea in Iraq cargo fraud case
Smoot, who had been the managing director of Eagle Global Logistics's freight forwarding station in Houston, faces up to 15 years in prison and $500,000 in fines.
Another former executive, Christopher Cahill, pleaded guilty in February 2006 to inflating invoices for military shipments to Baghdad through EGL's subcontract with the Haliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root. Cahill had been the company's former regional vice president for the Middle East and India.
Smoot admitted that he lied to federal investigators who questioned him about Cahill's scheme to inflate invoices by adding a "war risk surcharge" of 50 cents for each kilogram of freight transported to Baghdad. Smoot said he also gave more than $33,000 worth of entertainment to five Houston-based KBR transportation department employees for favorable treatment in getting subcontracts.
The gratuities included food, drinks, golf outings, tickets to rodeo events, baseball and football games. From Nov. 22, 2003, through July 20, 2004, EGL flew 379 shipments of military goods from Dubai to Baghdad under EGL's subcontract with KBR. The total amount of the EGL invoices was about $13.26 million, including $1.14 million in fraudulent charges.
Labels: Anti-Kickback Act, cargo, Christopher Cahill, court case, Eagle Global Logistics, EGL, fraud, Halliburton, Iraq, KBR, Kevin Andre Smoot
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Defense contractors challenge LOGCAP IV award, seek stay from GAO
Two days later, IAP Worldwide Services Inc., a Cape Canaveral, Fla., contractor, filed its own protest, also citing improper technical or price evaluations, according to Michael Golden, GAO's chief procurement attorney. IAP led a team of contractors that included industry giants Lockheed Martin, CACI and Blackwater. Officials with Contingency Management Group and IAP both declined to discuss the reasons for the protest.
The Army awarded its mammoth 10-year LOGCAP IV contract last month to three firms: the incumbent contractor, Kellogg, Brown and Root Services of Houston; former contract holder DynCorp International LLC of Fort Worth, Texas; and Fluor Intercontinental Inc. of Greenville, S.C. The three companies are each capped at $5 billion per year, although the Army does not expect the firms to reach the maximum value in any given year.
A fourth contractor, Serco Inc. of Vienna, Va., was awarded a $225 million support contract last February. The Army says Serco will assist in its planning and provide independent cost estimates, but will not play any oversight role or conduct any inherently governmental work.
In an e-mailed statement, KBR deferred questions about the protests to the Army, stating only that the company is "proud to have been chosen as one of three logistics support providers under the LOGCAP IV contract. We look forward to continuing our service to the U.S. forces deployed in the Middle East."
The three prime contractors will compete to deliver fuel, water and food, as well as field operations such as postal services, laundry and sanitation, to troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The indefinite quantity/indefinite delivery contract has a one-year base with nine option years and could be worth as much as $150 billion.
The use of multiple contractors is a departure from the sole-source strategy the Army has employed since the first LOGCAP contract was awarded in 1992. The change is "designed to enhance competition and reduce overall risk," said Daniel Carlson, a spokesman for the Army.
Previous incarnations of the logistics contract relied primarily on cost-plus task orders in which the Army and the contractor negotiated a price based on an estimate and adjusted the cost as needed. The government then paid the contractor a base reimbursement fee -- typically 1 percent -- on every task order and an additional 2 percent award fee if the work was done efficiently and honestly.
But watchdogs say the contract has been prone to abuse. KBR, which until recently was a subsidiary of Halliburton, was roundly criticized for its work on the 2001 LOGCAP III contract. Reports by GAO, the Defense Department inspector general and the Defense Contract Audit Agency found KBR overbilled the government for fuel and failed to justify $1.8 billion worth of work in Iraq and Kuwait.
And just days after the Army awarded the LOGCAP IV contract, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction released a report alleging that KBR provided its employees with better housing than U.S. soldiers, overspent on food by $4.5 million and failed to provide accurate measurements of the fuel services it provided. KBR is in the process of reviewing the report, company spokeswoman Heather Browne said.
DynCorp, meanwhile, has been rapped for providing vague invoices on a State Department contract in Iraq, while Fluor was heavily criticized for its work on a temporary housing contract for Gulf Coast residents in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
The Army plans to begin using its new LOGCAP IV contract in October, although the protests could delay its implementation. KBR's current LOGCAP contract expires in December, but the Army could exercise an option and extend it if needed.
Labels: Blackwater, CACI, Contingency Management Group LLC, DynCorp, Fluor, GAO, Halliburton, IAP Worldwide Services Inc., KBR, Lockheed Martin, LOGCAP IV, PAE Government Services, Shaw Group
Friday, July 13, 2007
KBR awarded $8.5 mn. Basrah oil platforms contract
Additional funds for this phase of the contract brings the total value to $13.5 million. The entire contract is worth up to $500 million, which includes four-year extension options, the Navy said. The Houston-based company will perform the work in waters off the coast of Iraq through November 2007. Shares of KBR (nyse: KBR - news - people ) rose 25 cents to $31.60 in after-hours trading, after shares rose 42 cents to $31.35.
Labels: Al Bas Basra Oil Terminal, Halliburton, KBR, Khawr Al Amaya Oil Terminal
Monday, July 02, 2007
DynCorp Kuwaiti LOGCAP IV partner's shares up by 6.6 per cent
The contract would run 10 years, of which 9 were optional, and would have a value of $50bn for the whole period, it added. The deal, which included food and oil supply services, would be worth $5 billion for each year. Agility, which is diversifying its business and expanding abroad, said it could not currently determine its exact share of the deal.
The total deal also includes US firms KBR, a former unit of Halliburton, and Fluor Corporation with a combined potential value of up to $150 billion to provide services to the US military in the Middle East. Agility said on June 16 the US military had renewed a five-year deal worth $1.5 billion, extending the deal to its third consecutive year. The contract is up for yearly renewal.
The US government said on June 1 it had awarded Agility another supply and food deal worth up to $2.8 billion. Agility has said it was expanding in the Middle East, Africa or Eastern Europe to diversify its business and lower its exposure to US military deals, a key source of income.
Agility, previously known as Public Warehousing Co., has bought at least seven smaller rivals this year including New Zealand-based LEP International and Chinese freight company Guangzhou Runtang International Transport Company Limited.
Kuwait's money supply rose 15.6pc in the year to May, according to data on the Central Bank of Kuwait Website. M3, the broadest measured of money supply, rose to $60.36 billion. Money supply rose 18.3pc in the year to April.
Labels: Agility Defense and Government Services, CH2M Hill, DynCorp International, Fluor Intercontinental, KBR, Kuwait, LOGCAP IV, Public Warehousing Co.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
LOGCAP IV awarded to Fluor, DynCorp and KBR
Fluor Intercontinental of Greenville, S.C., DynCorp International of Fort Worth and KBR of Houston were chosen from among a half-dozen competitors. Each company's part of the contract is worth up to $5 billion a year and can be extended for up to nine more years. The contract award was a particular victory for KBR, Halliburton's former contracting arm, after the firm was accused of misdeeds under the past contract, one contracting expert said.
"This is potentially the biggest battlefield services contract that any company is going to win for the remainder of this decade," Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a defense research organization in Arlington.
Known as the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or LOGCAP IV, the contract is considered one of the biggest deals in the contracting services industry. It has ballooned in value from $2 billion when it was first awarded in 1992 to $23 billion under the most recent LOGCAP III contract.
Two of the new winners have a history with the contract. KBR won the initial LOGCAP contract when support services were needed mainly in Bosnia. DynCorp won it in 1997 to do work in East Timor and the Philippines. And in 2001, it was again awarded to KBR to provide services in Afghanistan, Kuwait and, after the 2003 invasion, Iraq. Since then, the contract has come under scrutiny by members of Congress, and critics have alleged that KBR had an advantage in winning the 2001 contract because Vice President Cheney had been Halliburton's chief executive.
There have been other allegations of overcharging and poor record-keeping by KBR and lax oversight by the government. Government auditors turned up more than $1 billion in questionable costs. As of the end of May, KBR -- the largest single contractor in Iraq -- had been paid $19.7 billion for its work under the contract.
About 50,000 contractors work for KBR directly or as subcontractors to deliver services, and 500 government employees provide oversight of the logistics contract, according to Army officials.
Labels: DynCorp International, Fluor Intercontinental, Halliburton, KBR, LOGCAP IV, Logistics Civil Augmentation Program
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Army to rebid Halliburton multi-billion dollar contract
Halliburton subsidiary KBR, also known as Kellogg Brown & Root, provides food, water, shelter, laundry service and other logistical support for troops under a 2001 contract that has been extended several times. Halliburton is a Texas-based oil services conglomerate once led by Vice President Dick Cheney. Bush administration officials have come under fire since the beginning of the war in Iraq for awarding more than $10 billion to the company and its subsidiaries in 2003 and 2004, some of it in no-bid contracts. There have been allegations of fraud, poor work, overpricing and other abuse, which the company has denied.
Army spokesman Dave Foster said Wednesday that although the service will rebid the contract, it has not decided yet how that will be done. KBR would be allowed to bid in the new competition, but one option Army officials are considering is to divide the work among three companies. Asked why the contract was being discontinued, Foster said it was part of the Army's "lessons learned" process.
Labels: Halliburton, KBR, Kellogg Brown and Root, U.S. army contract
Monday, June 04, 2007
Iraqi industries to support U.S. military in Iraq
"Let's get American and third country contractors out of that business and let's get Iraqis into that business," Brigadier Steven Anderson, a driving force behind the programme, told AFP. "Let's get Iraqis employed and get them out of the bomb-making business and into the support-providing business," added the deputy chief of staff for resources and sustainment.
The Iraq-based industrial zone (I-BIZ) programme was conceived last year when military commanders recognised the need to boost employment to put a dent in the violence raging throughout the country. "There is a clear focus both by the Iraqi government and on the part of the US mission of beginning this process to see more jobs created," a US official in Baghdad told reporters in May.
The idea is comparatively simple and mirrors the support industries to be found outside US bases in South Korea and Germany. It will involve building a protected area for Iraqis to provide products, services and maintenance.
The plan is a major departure from the first four years of the US presence in Iraq when nearly every need was provided by large US contractors such as Kellogg Brown and Root, a Halliburton subsidiary. KBR in turn brought in thousands of foreign workers, mainly from south Asia. Unlike citizens from other countries hosting US bases, Iraqis have seen few financial benefits from having more than 140,000 US troops in their country.
A December 2004 suicide attack on a US military dining facility in Mosul killed 14 soldiers and for all intents and purposes ended the employment of locals on bases. Iraqi unemployment was bad before the 2003 US invasion, but following a series of decisions by the Coalition Provisional Authority to disband the army and shut down state-owned industries, it soared to an estimated 48 percent.
One of the most tangible results of this shift is the ongoing mission by Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Brinkely to restart dozens of mothballed state-owned factories. The I-BIZ programme would coordinate with Brinkley's efforts and the reopened factories could have storefronts in the industrial zones, Anderson said. For now, the project is in its infancy, with a two-year-old prototype near the southern city of Diwaniyah. The first true zone will open in August next to the massive Camp Victory base at Baghdad airport. Over the next year, further zones will appear at Tikrit's Camp Speicher, at Camp Taji just north of Baghdad and at Talil Air Base, in the south near Nasiriyah. Construction began six weeks ago on the Camp Victory Iraqi zone which will hold around 35 businesses over 25 acres.
Labels: Brigadier Steven Anderson, Camp Victory, contractors, I-BIZ, Iraqi businesses, KBR, Paul Brinkley, U.S. military
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Halliburton expects extension on LOGCAP contract
Labels: contracts, Halliburton, KBR, LogCAP, U.S. Department of Defense