EXCLUSIVE: House report exposed FEMA contracting, too

When the House committee investigating Katrina released its 379-page report last week, the portions of the report savaging the government's failed relief effort made big headlines. But the report also included many smaller bombshells, including a devastating critique of FEMA's contracting operations.

In a Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch exclusive, reporter Sean Reilly brings to light the latest revelations of cronyism and incompetence:

FEMA's Contracting Disaster

By SEAN REILLY
Reconstruction Watch
February 22, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Understaffed, unprepared and utterly overwhelmed.

Such was the state of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's contracting shop when Hurricane Katrina struck last August, according to a new congressional report.

'Procurement officials acknowledged the initial contracting response was poor, with little planning and inadequate resources,' says the report, released last week by a House committee probing the response to Katrina. While the panel's findings of failures at all levels of government have gotten widespread coverage, the press has paid far less attention to an illuminating chapter on flaws in logistics and contracting operations.

Although FEMA's 'acquisition unit' was supposed to have 55 employees, for example, only 36 of those slots were filled when Katrina hit. For more than two weeks afterward -- in what officials labeled 'the real nightmare emergency' -- FEMA generally didn't bother with written contracts for food, ice, buses and other supplies. Instead, the agency 'simply instructed companies to begin work and submit vouchers for payment,' the report says.

With no apparent irony, the report's authors note that 'this could raise issues of enforceability' once written contracts are issued."

You can read the rest here.