[Infowarrior] - DHS Oversaw $15 Billion in Failed Contracts

[Richard Forno]

(I guess DHS is now a properly-functioning federal 'security' agency,  
eh?  ---rf)

Homeland Security Department Oversaw $15 Billion in Failed Contracts

By Jason Leopold
The Public Record
Tuesday, September 16, 2008

http://www.pubrecord.org/politics/327.html?task=view

Since it was created in 2003, the Department of Homeland Security has  
overseen about $15 billion in failed contracts—a third of the agency’s  
contract spending—for a a wide-range of projects, according to  
documents and other data obtained by the House Committee on Homeland  
Security.

On Wednesday, a lawyer with the watchdog group the Project on  
Government Oversight, an official with the Government Accountability  
Office and the DHS deputy inspector general will testify before the  
House Subcommittee on Management, Investigations and Oversight about  
overhauling the acquisitions process that resulted in wasteful spending.

The Washington Post, which first reported the story late Tuesday, said  
the witnesses will “talk about a series of problem projects: About  
$351 million was wasted and not properly overseen in the U.S. Coast  
Guard's Deepwater program after ships were built and then scrapped,  
according to Homeland Security committee staffers and oversight agency  
reports. A $1.5 billion Boeing program to help secure U.S. borders  
with electronic sensors and other equipment is being shelved after it  
was over-budget, late and had technology problems.”

“A $10 billion program called US VISIT, a computer system designed to  
record the entry and exit of visitors to the United States at airports  
and border crossings, is behind schedule and not being managed well,  
according to figures prepared by the committee staff,” the Washington  
Post reported. “And $200 million was mismanaged and poorly spent in  
buying trailers from Bechtel and Fluor for Hurricane Katrina,  
according to committee staffers, the GAO and other oversight reports.

DHS was created five years ago by merging the Federal Emergency  
Management Agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the  
Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration, and more  
than a dozen other agencies. The agency employs more than 200,000  
people and has an annual budget of roughly $50 billion. Its contract  
spending has skyrocketed from $3.4 billion a year to $12.2 billion  
last year.