Raise your hand if you're surprised by this.

[unixronin]

Halliburton hired for storm cleanup

The Navy has hired Houston-based Halliburton Co. to restore electric power, repair roofs and remove debris at three naval facilities in Mississippi damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Halliburton subsidiary KBR will also perform damage assessments at other naval installations in New Orleans as soon as it is safe to do so.

KBR was assigned the work under a "construction capabilities" contract awarded in 2004 after a competitive bidding process.  The company is not involved in the Army Corps of Engineers' effort to repair New Orleans' levees.

(link from james_nicoll)

Tell me with a straight face that nobody saw THAT coming.

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I'm aware of this, yes.

It just looks so damn bad when we hear "KBR-Halliburton overcharged the Pentagon by 30% on this in Iraq", "KBR-Halliburton provided substandard food to our troops in Iraq", "The Pentagon is withholding such-and-such amount of payment from KBR-Halliburton due to failure to complete specified tasks", and then suddenly, "Oh, we're awarding KBR-Halliburton the contracts to rebuild all these Gulf Coast facilities."

I realize there are few qualified alternate contractors. But I wish there were more, so that there could be some kind of choice and competitive bidding, and KBR had more incentive to do a better job.