Report: FEMA Wasted $30M on Trailers

[cal04]

Source: Associated Press

What will $229,000 cover in the Mississippi real estate market?

A five-bedroom, 2,000-square-foot home in the capital city of Jackson, or a 280-square-foot temporary FEMA trailer in the Hurricane Katrina-ravaged zone of the Gulf Coast, according to a government report issued Friday.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office found "ineffective oversight" caused about $30 million in "wasteful and improper or potentially fraudulent payments" to contractors between June 2006 and January 2007 — including expenses for some temporary trailer sites.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will spend an average of $30,000 on each trailer on a private site through March 2009, when the government plans to close the temporary housing.

(snip)
The GAO says FEMA gave contracts for group site maintenance to two companies that did not appear to have met a requirement to submit independent bids. The companies had the same president and accountant, and the companies shared price information before submitting proposals to FEMA, the GAO says.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071117/ap_on_re_us/katrina_waste_1

[aquart]

1. So which crony got the trailer money?

[dantyrant]

5. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Marvin Bush...

went into the trailer business two weeks before Katrina.

[nightrider767]

2. I've heard...That the same goes for welfare.

I've heard that if they got rid of the welfare bureaucracy and instead just gave the money to people who needed it, the recipients would average $100,000 plus per year...

[Gman]

3. Yeah, but a lot of people made a lot of money selling trailers and looting the treasury

which, to the GOP who is allowing the looting of the treasury, is the most important thing.

[RedSock]

9. and THAT is why they are not incompetent

once you know their real goals, bush-cheney are quite efficient in nearly everything they do.

[bookman]

4. Sad n/t

[Tab]

6. "the same president and accountant", eh?

Doesn't even sound like "two" separate companies to me. And they "shared" information? They were talking to themselves in the mirror?

At times like these there are only a handful of companies that can come up with certain resources at the drop of a hat, but trailers - c'mon. You can buy nice ones for $80k, and cheap ones for far less, and I don't think $30k is unreasonable, but $229k?? This isn't like buying Hummers or something. LOTS of companies make trailers. Just buy a few different kinds.

Everything would be just so much simpler if I ran the government.

[SpiralHawk]

7. "They did a heckuva job. Republicon cronies benefitted. Smirk." - Commander AWOL

"We republicon homelanders knows how to make Big Bucks from disaster. Smirk."

- Commander AWOL Bush

[Up2Late]

8. "ineffective oversight"??? I guess they didn't get the memo, it's "Smaller Government!!!"

Or at least, that's what the Republic Party Talking Point Memo says to refer to it as, and if they still had anyone working in the Government's Personnel Management office that could do it, they would Fire that guy!:banghead:

[leaninglib]

10. Well, we are after all, talking about an entity that functions with a 75 - 80% overhead.

[Solar_Power]

11. Well, someone collected the $30 million

how about going after them?