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| More Fancy Math @ Halliburton...Snicker |
| 2004-02-02 |
| EFL and a Confession, I Made good money buying HAL & KBR stock during the War, so I suppose I shouldn’t bitch...and yet, this seemingly never ending story does make me crazy. Halliburton Co. allegedly overcharged more than $16 million for meals at a single U.S. military base in Kuwait during the first seven months of last year, according to Pentagon investigators auditing the company’s work. If we can’t charge double the going rate for gasoline to our troops, I can see them sitting around a board room saying, Then lets try it on Food... The allegations, involving food-service work done by Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root, come on the heels of another KBR dispute and have spurred an expansion of an already widening inquiry into Halliburton’s government work in Iraq. Last month KBR reimbursed the Pentagon $6.3 million after disclosing that two employees had taken substantial kickbacks from a Kuwaiti subcontractor in return for work providing services to U.S. troops in Iraq. KBR also has been accused of overcharging for gasoline under an Army Corps of Engineers contract. The corps has cleared KBR of any wrongdoing, but the Pentagon continues to investigate the dispute. Because of the new meal-billing discrepancies, the Pentagon has extended its audit of KBR food services to include more than 50 other dining facilities in Kuwait and Iraq, according to an e-mail "alert" sent Friday to more than a dozen U.S. Army contracting officials and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. This dispute focuses on meals served at Camp Arifjan, the huge U.S. military base south of Kuwait City. The e-mail memo that went out Friday said that in July alone, a Saudi subcontractor hired by KBR billed for 42,042 meals a day on average but served only 14,053 meals a day. The difference in cost for that month exceeded $3.5 million, according to Pentagon records. The Pentagon last year paid KBR more than $30 million for meals at the camp from January through July, a tab that included charges for nearly four million meals the government asserts were never served. Pentagon officials couldn’t provide an estimate for the total cost of feeding troops in Iraq. Hummmm...14,000 times 3...well, Heck, that’s close to 42,000 meals, ain’t nobody going to notice...but the 4 Million meals not served, that could just be explained as a problem of higher math and a Saudi Vendor. I’m not being anti-war, but I don’t like my tax money being spent this way. In fact, I half way feel that the Iraqi’s themselves should pay for the war, but with these kind of Shenanigans going on, it’s kind of hard to ask. |
| Posted by:Traveller |
| #8 I can't see a Saudi contractor pulling a scam to make extra money. By everything that .com posts everything in the House of Sod is on teh up-and-up. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-2-2 10:39:13 AM |
| #7 Traveller - What is it with the left that whenever they are challenged by a reasonable view they then confabulate 17 different opinions into a single 'position' in the hope(?) that nobody will try and dissect their 'position' and show they hold as much (hot) water as a chocolate teapot. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-2-2 10:12:55 AM |
| #6 With the earlier Halliburton incident, the "overcharging" was traced to a Kuwaiti company that the DoD had mandated Halliburton do business with. You can read more details at: http://windsofchange.net/archives/004417.html. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2004-2-2 9:49:07 AM |
| #5 It will be interesting to see what comes of the gas overcharging investigation. I hope it was just a bogus claim. If not, then I hope someone at Halliburton gets prosecuted 100%. (which is why the gov't, especially the mil has auditing systems for checks and balances.) I've done some contracting work w/civilians, I will tell you we (in the mil) have super strict accounting practices and a massive check/balance system. Too bad our elected reps don't have nearly the fiscal common sense or rules that we have to follow. I like Traveller's comments, good to see another independent, just call it like you see it; that's how shit gets fixed. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2004-2-2 9:09:10 AM |
| #4 To The Two Phil's: (Smile) I hope both of you are right and this is just a complex "System," kind of error and that they will get on top of it. And yet, war profiteering has a long and profitable (lol & irony) history. These continuing reports are troubling. I am also not as sure as Phil-2 that the gasoline over-charging allegatiion is Bogus...the Pentagon continues its invertigation and we will see. At some level, when I was strongly supporting the war, I had a sneaking idea that somehow, in some fashion, the Powers that Be would figure out some way to have the War pay for itself. The $87Billion appropriations for this year alone leaves me wide-eyed in semi-astonishment. It's a lot of money...If it must be spent, I want to see it wisely spent. As to Phil's idea and web entry that Halliburton is a whiping boy of the left...Well, I suppose I could dig into that and try to see what honest and independent opinion I might have...But would it be worth the time & effort? Probably not. It's not like it's that big a deal. If Haliburton is in fact stealing (from us, I migh add), I can only hope that Phil_b is right and auditing will catch and correct the worse abuses. However, I won't give 'em a free pass either. BTW, a war for "Oil," isn't necessarily a bad idea...lol |
| Posted by: Traveller 2004-2-2 3:18:41 AM |
| #3 Of course, the gas overcharge allegations turned out to be bogus, but I don't think that was reported very widely or loudly. Notice that the overcharge in this case is traced to a Saudi subcontractor. BTW, I made a recent post regarding all the numerous Halliburton allegations; you can read it here. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2004-2-2 2:06:09 AM |
| #2 Is this the same Haliburton that current Vice President Dick Cheney once had a stake and that he also made a bazillion dollars (and has since converted into Euros and gold? I guess I'll have to listen to ABC radio on the "half hour" and find out more about this scandle. Trav, your a bud and this is a good post. But phil-b is spot on. |
| Posted by: Lucky 2004-2-2 2:02:58 AM |
| #1 Looks to me like the system is working the way it should. Its tough setting up complex operations in places where graft and incompetance are the norm. Its the job of auditors to catch these things and make sure they don't happen again. The Left will doubtless jump up and down about this, but this is the way things are supposed to work. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-2-2 1:50:21 AM |