A third or more of the government property Halliburton Co. was paid to manage for the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq could not be located by auditors, investigative reports to Congress show.
Halliburton's KBR subsidiary “did not effectively manage government property” and auditors could not locate hundreds of CPA items worth millions of dollars in Iraq and Kuwait this summer and fall, Inspector General Stuart W. Bowen reported to Congress in two reports.
Bowen's findings mark the latest bad news for Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, which is the focus of both a criminal investigation into alleged fuel price gouging and an Federal Bureau of Investigation inquiry into possible favouritism from the Bush administration.
The Associated Press reported Wednesday that FBI agents have extensively interviewed an Army contracting officer who last month went public with allegations that the Bush administration was improperly awarding contracts to Halliburton without competitive bidding.
Halliburton and the Pentagon deny wrongdoing, and say they are cooperating in all investigations. Company spokeswoman Cathy Gist said Friday that KBR recently conducted a “wall-to-wall” review of all property it is managing for the Pentagon in war zones including Iraq and Afghanistan and produced results far better than Bowen's findings.
“We are pleased to report that this total inventory review confirmed 99.4 per cent accountability of all property,” she said.
“The facts show that KBR has adequately managed property for this mission by aggressively monitoring its property management functions – above and beyond what is required.”
The US-backed CPA officially dissolved after a year in power in Baghdad when an interim Iraqi government took control of the country this summer. But Bowen's office continues to review how money was spent and it gave a tough assessment of KBR's performance. KBR won a key logistics contract to manage everything from trucks and generators to computers.
Bowen reported that an audit earlier this summer found KBR had lost track of more than $18 million (Dh 66 million) worth of equipment in Iraq.
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