U.S. hires firms with questionable pasts for Afghan jobs

[FreakinDJ]

Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — For years, the U.S. government has entrusted Michael Drannan with one of its most important foreign policy efforts: rebuilding Afghanistan.

Yet as Drannan's company won millions of dollars in government contracts in the war-torn country, he was never questioned about his unpaid U.S. taxes or his four months in a Florida jail over unpaid child support.

Drannan's troubled background exposes the U.S. government's failure to thoroughly vet companies that are winning contracts in Afghanistan.

In all, McClatchy found nearly $4.5 billion in contracts that were awarded to companies even though they violated laws or had high-profile disputes over previous projects. Such legal or financial troubles could indicate that a company isn't prepared to finish a project or is prone to wasting taxpayer money.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/14/103380/us-hires-firms-with-questionable.html#storylink=cpy

[Solly Mack]

1. k/r

Same old, same old. Just look at KBR - constantly awarded contracts regardless of their criminal actions throughout the years.

[bhikkhu]

2. Mistakes like that are typical of understaffed offices, overworked people

Its difficult to "thoroughly vet" or otherwise take all due care in a timely manner if your office is short-staffed. Something to keep in mind when articles like these come up.

While we have had 22 months straight of private sector job growth, for 2011 alone there were 183k government jobs cut. When the government doesn't have enough people to do a legitimate job well because it doesn't have the money to employ people to do it, and the overall rates of taxation are the lowest since the 50's, the solution should be obvious...

[DCKit]

3. We've been on to this crap for ten years. nt