Golden Fleece Goes To DoD For Wasteful Spending In Afghanistan

The Golden Fleece Award

ARRA News Service: Congressman French Hill (R-AR) named the Department of Defense (DoD) as February’s winner of the Golden Fleece award for the mismanagement and waste of taxpayer funds in Afghanistan.

In a letter to the Department of Defense Secretary James Mattis, Congressman Hill wrote:
March 8, 2018

The Honorable James Mattis
Secretary
Department of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1000

Dear Secretary Mattis:

I write today to inform you that your agency is February’s recipient of my Golden Fleece Award. I am awarding this to the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for waste outlined in a recent report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).

According to the SIGAR 18-19 Audit Report, DOD’s Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO) awarded at least $675 million in contracts between 2010 and 2014. Of that total, $316 million in projects that were funded between 2010 and 2014 to boost the Afghan economy, and 78 percent of the contracts failed to meet their goals.

One example is the awarding of a more than $400,000 sole source contract for the construction of a cold storage facility. According to contracting documents, the contractor completed its construction work for the shell building, but upon inspection by the SIGAR in 2017, no evidence was found that the building existed. Further, an internal TFBSO memorandum acknowledged this contract was awarded without doing an industry analysis or fully vetting the recipient company.

Another example is TFBSO obligating $51 million between 2010 and 2014 for legal, technical, and commercial experts to support the Afghan Ministry of Mines and Petroleum with tendering contracts for Afghanistan’s mineral deposits. The goal was for TFBSO to facilitate the award of at least eight mineral contracts. However, with four of these, TFBSO’s assistance stopped partway through the process, and the four others have yet to be awarded at all. The SIGAR report expressed concerns that even if these contracts are all eventually awarded the government of Afghanistan lacks the audit and enforcement capabilities to hold the contract awardees accountable if they violate the terms of the contract.

These are just two out of dozens of examples of projects that failed to meet few or any of their contract goals. I am committed to ensuring effective spending practices at our Nation’s federal agencies. Should you require any additional authority from Congress to address these concerns, I urge you to notify us as soon as possible. I thank you for your consideration and look forward to working with you to address this important issue.

Sincerely,

French Hill
Member of CongressAbout the Golden Fleece Award
Every year, Congress appropriates trillions of dollars to fund the federal government, and every year the federal government wastes portions of these funds in unconscionable ways. As a Member of Congress, and as a taxpayer, this frustrates me to no end. In an attempt to increase accountability for every single government program, Congressman Hill decided to bring back the Golden Fleece Award.

Originally introduced by Democratic U.S. Senator from Wisconsin William Proxmire in March 1975, the Golden Fleece Award was a monthly bulletin on the most frivolous and wasteful uses of hardworking taxpayers’ dollars. The Golden Fleece Award became a staple in the U.S. Senate during this time, and Senator Robert Byrd once stated that the awards were “as much a part of the Senate as quorum calls and filibusters.”

In reviving this idea, the Golden Fleece Award will again have the opportunity to serve as an important reminder to taxpayers about the need for necessary, commonsense reforms to our federal spending.

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Tags: Rep. French Hill, R-AR, awards, February, 2018, Golden Fleece Award, DoD, Wasteful Spending, Afghanistan To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!