Firm With Checkered Record Hired For Afghan Work

[Purveyor]

(01-10) 12:56 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --

The U.S. government is counting on an American contractor with a record of cost overruns and missed deadlines to handle a critical component of Gen. David Petraeus' plan to stabilize volatile southern Afghanistan: quickly deliver more electricity to the power-starved region.

The U.S. Agency for International Development awarded Black & Veatch Corp. of Overland Park, Kan., a no-bid contract worth $266 million last month to pump more power into Kandahar and Helmand provinces. Expanding electrical access will allow businesses to open and improve the quality of life for Afghans, undercutting the influence of the Taliban-led insurgency, officials say.

The agency said Black & Veatch was uniquely positioned to handle the work, which it called urgent. But in choosing Black & Veatch, the agency set aside its own criticism of the company's performance on an earlier project to build a diesel-fueled power plant in Afghanistan's capital city. The Kabul plant was initially supposed to cost $100 million, but ballooned to more than $300 million while construction lagged a year behind schedule.

The decision illustrates the U.S. reliance on the private sector to stifle insurgency through reconstruction. An internal USAID document said the southern power project is "the most prominent component" of the agency's infrastructure plans in Afghanistan "because stabilization of the area in the next 12 months is critical to the success of the U.S. Afghan strategy."

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