Pierce: FEMA Gave a 1-Person Company $156 Million to Deliver Meals in Puerto Rico [View all]

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http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a16641861/fema-puerto-rico-meals-30-million/

FEMA Gave a 1-Person Company $156 Million to Deliver Meals in Puerto Rico
What could go wrong? Everything.
By Charles P. Pierce
Feb 6, 2018


Seventy years ago this coming June, in an effort to get the Western allies to abandon entirely the city of Berlin, the occupying forces of the Soviet Union embarked upon a rigid blockade of the city, cutting off the city’s water supply and blocking all deliveries of food from the outside. They also cut off the city’s electric power. A million and a half Soviet troops surrounded the city.

It was decided by the allied powers that the city would be supplied by air. Led by the United States, the air forces of Canada, France, Great Britain, Australia, South Africa all combined to deliver nearly $2.5 million worth of supplies—including coal—to Berlin over the next year. This was the Berlin Airlift. This is what we used to be able to do. This is what we used to be proud of being able to do. Now, almost 70 years on, we get this, from CNN.

US Rep. Elijah Cummings and Stacey Plaskett, the congressional delegate from the US Virgin Islands, signed a letter to House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy on Tuesday morning, calling into question a $156 million contract awarded to a small Atlanta-based company, Tribute Contracting LLC. The company delivered 50,000 of the 30 million meals promised in a contract signed October 3, less than 0.25 percent, according to Tribute Contracting owner Tiffany Brown.

According to documents that Brown provided to CNN, FEMA terminated the agreement -- the largest direct meals contract during the 2017 hurricane season -- "due to late delivery of the approved heater meals." The contract was terminated October 23, 20 days after it was signed. "One of the primary reasons FEMA failed to deliver these meals is because it inexplicably awarded a contract worth approximately $156 million to deliver 30 million emergency meals to a tiny, one-person company with a history of struggling with much smaller contracts," Cummings and Plaskett said in the letter.

So far, the explanation for why this tiny company got such a big contract is…unsatisfying.

Brown said Tuesday that she has been overwhelmed and plans to sue the government for $70 million. "Here is what I can say, I've had challenges with government contracts in the past. The primary reason is financial resources, and lack of support," she said. Tribute Contracting LLC is registered as a one-employee company with an annual revenue of $1,000 on the government's Federal Procurement Data System. Brown, however, said the profile is out of date. Brown admits she did not have sufficient funds to finance the project fully but insists her company was not awarded the contract through any "hookups" with FEMA. "I got it because I had a very good proposal and understanding of what was needed," she told CNN.

If this reminds you of that tiny Montana company that got the really big contract to restore power in Puerto Rico, that’s only because it should. Seventy years ago, 70 airmen lost their lives in the effort that saved Berlin. Today, we have substituted profiteering and ineptitude for sacrifice and creativity. Running the country like a business, as it were.