Oversight Subcommittee Hearing on Contractor Performance
Subcommittee Chairman Edolphus Towns gives opening remarks:
| Chairman Towns: "Our first case study is Wackenhut. Wackenhut provides security for the Department of Energy at the Oakridge nuclear site since 2004. The Department of Energy Inspector General reported that Wackenhut tipped off guards that a security drill, making the drill useless; required personnel to work overtime in excess of safety guidelines; and falsifed records of security guards' training. The IG found that Oakridge security costs nearly doubled during the Wackenhut five-year term, and that the company may have unduly profited. But Energy officials are pleased with Wackenhut's performance. They have awarded ratings of 98 and 99%, granted millions in award fees, and renewed Wackenhut's contract." |
Homeland Security Department Inspector General Richard Skinner gives opening testimony:
| Richard Skinner: "It should come as no great surprise to anyone that there is an acquisition management crisis within the federal government today. The problem is not a new one. For the past decade, acquisition management capabilities have been downsizing while the procurement workload was on the rise. Procurement spending in the federal government has more than doubled in just the past six years alone from $203 billion to $412 billion." |
Rep. Peter Welch (VT-AL) questions witness on the baffling lack of consequences for faulty contractors and one particularly bizarre story regarding Wackenhut security contractors. Questioning ends when votes are called:
| Richard Skinner: "With the Wackenhut incident, that contract was actually a Department of Defense contract. We received the allegations in February of 2006, and the contract was about to expire in March 2006. That, coupled with the fact that, as we were in fact doing our preliminary work on those allegations, we were asked to step down by the two Senators that had referred the allegation to us for fear that those who made the allegation would become known to the contractor. Given those variables..." Rep. Welch: "Go slow on that. You were asked by what?" |
Extended transcript of above exchange:
Skinner: "With the Wackenhut incident, that contract was actually a Department of Defense contract. We received the allegations in February of 2006, and the contract was about to expire in March 2006. That, coupled with the fact that, as we were in fact doing our preliminary work on those allegations, we were asked to step down by the two Senators that had referred the allegation to us for fear that those who made the allegation would become known to the contractor. Given those variables..."Rep. Welch: "Go slow on that. You were asked by what?"
Skinner: "The allegations came to us through Congress. They came from employees of Wackenhut through Congress and were referred to us. We were in the process of taking a close look at those allegations to determine whether they merited an investigation or some type of further review. When we discovered that the contract, in fact, was not a Department of Homeland Security contract, but was a DoD contract, because the facility at that time, early on, was in fact a DoD facility, and the Department of Homeland Security had just moved in March 2003. Department of Homeland Security -- Elaine, I believe you were involved in this as well -- was in the process of rebidding that security contract, and the contract was about to expire in March, and I believe we actually rebid and hired another contractor in June."
Rep. Welch: "But the investigation was never completed, right?"
Skinner: "That's correct. That does not mean that we... we are going to continue to take a very close look at this."
Rep. Welch: "Wait a minute. You're going to take a close look at that now?"
Skinner: "Well, the contract is expired. The contractor is no longer providing security services for that facility. However, they are providing services at other facilities, so our concern now is, if they in fact had problems at that facility, who's to say that they're not going to have problems at other facilities?"
Rep. Welch: "So let me ask the obvious question, if it happened a while ago, and you think it's still relevant, why hasn't it been investigated?"
Skinner: "The incident at the NAC, again, that contractor is no longer employed there. There's a new contractor."
Rep. Welch: "You said, that contractor -- this is not making sense to me, with all due respect. You said it's still relevant to you because this Wackenhut has other contracts at other places, and it's relevant what happened there to determine whether the work they do elsewhere meets the requirements of the taxpayers. So, obviously, it means that if you want to get that information, sooner getting it is better than later."
Skinner: "Yes. And we are, in fact, planning to do that. And you have to understand, we have very limited resources as well, and it had to work its way up the chain, and it's something that's on our to-do list."
Rep. Welch: "We're all saved by the vote..."
Subcommittee Chairman Edolphus Towns questions Robin Smith, former Wackenhut security officer at DHS headquarters:
| Robin Smith: "I've never seen anything like the way Wackenhut ran Homeland Security. Homeland Security, I think, on any other contract would have been considered the most prestigious contract you could have next to the White House. I've worked with other security companies and any time there's been an issue of officers sleeping, inappropriate behavior, falsifying documentation, I've never seen 24 hours go past without someone from corporate headquarters coming down to investigate. And I've never seen a situation in which people would repeatedly do the same thing and report to duty the next day..." |