Thursday, December 29, 2005

More incredible waste not tied to Louisiana "corruption."

Yahoo! News:
"'Based on our work related to prior emergency response efforts, we have raised concerns regarding weaknesses' within those programs, the audit by Homeland Security Inspector General Richard L. Skinner said.

Moreover, 'when one considers that FEMA's programs are largely administered through grants and contracts, the circumstances created by hurricanes Katrina and Rita provide an unprecedented opportunity for fraud, waste and abuse,' the report found.

'While DHS is taking several steps to manage and control spending under Katrina, the sheer size of the response and recovery efforts will create an unprecedented need for oversight,' the report said."
This article is hard hitting. It documents the numerous ways that the taxpayer is getting ripped off by multi-level sub-contracting, whith each level adding more cost. It costs as much to put a blue tarp on a roof as it would to completely re-roof the house with standard shingles. And the top contractors won't talk about what they do, or show their books.
From blue tarps to debris removal, layers of contractors drive up the cost of recovery, critics say. Top-tier contractors say it's the only way to get the work done.: "Critics acknowledge some administration is needed, and that the sheer scale of the various jobs leads to increased overhead costs. Still, the difference between the price of the contract and the money collected by those doing the work appalls them, they say.

'When you have this nesting, or tiering, you're losing a lot of money to friction as it goes from sub to sub down to the worker bee who's actually turning a wrench or putting on a blue tarp,' said Steve Ellis, vice president of programs at the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Keith Ashdown, a colleague of Ellis', decried the 'blank-check mentality' that he said often results in overspending in the wake of disasters. 'I guarantee we're going to come back to this after everything has been reviewed and find we paid (upscale retailer) Nordstrom prices when we should have been paying Wal-Mart costs,' he said."

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