Massive rebuilding projects an opportune time for fraud

For some of the nation’s biggest engineering and construction firms, Hurricane Katrina has a silver lining — lucrative no-bid contracts to rebuild parts of the damaged coast.

The number of contracts going to firms with ties to official Washington raises troubling questions and gives the appearance of impropriety.

The list of those riding the government gravy train includes a Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg Brown and Root. Halliburton already scored big on Iraq’s reconstruction. But there are questions about the company’s performance in Iraq; the Pentagon considers $1.03 billion in Halliburton Iraq costs as “questioned” and another $422 million “unsupported,” according to the Reuters News Service.

But there are other ties between the company and the administration. Joe Allbaugh, former head of the embattled Federal Emergency Management Agency, registered as a lobbyist for Kellogg Brown and Root in February.

We aren’t picking on Halliburton. There are other companies with strong links to Washington that are lining up for disaster recovery work, too. The CEO of Bechtel National Inc., who was given a no-bid FEMA contract to provide short-term housing to Katrina’s victims, serves on the president’s Export Council.

In the case of hurricane relief, federal officials argue that the no-bid contracts were necessary because the usual government procurement procedures are cumbersome and can take months to execute. No one disputes that the hurricane’s victims need help now, and that certain tasks like fixing the levees and pumps cannot wait.

However, the government shouldn’t just hand over the checkbook. Halliburton and the others are not nonprofit organizations, but they shouldn’t get paid for services they don’t deliver. Oversight is needed to make sure that doesn’t happen again and that taxpayers get what they pay for.