CONTRACTORS GET FAT ON SERVICES

“The U.S. mil­i­tary spends bil­lions of dol­lars each year to buy planes, ships, armored vehi­cles and ammu­ni­tion, but in recent years it has spent even more on ser­vice con­tracts much of it with­out com­pet­i­tive bids,” Defense News reports.

The Pentagon spent more than $122 bil­lion on ser­vices in 2003, or about 56 per­cent of the money it paid to defense con­trac­tors that year, accord­ing to the Center for Public Integrity, a non­par­ti­san pub­lic pol­icy research orga­ni­za­tion. The ser­vices range from feed­ing troops to inter­ro­gat­ing Iraqi pris­on­ers to help­ing draft the bud­get request the defense sec­re­tary sends to Congress.

“44 per­cent of the Pentagons con­tracts $362 bil­lion worth since 1998 are awarded with­out com­pet­i­tive bid­ding,” Defense News notes. And “among the top 10 defense con­trac­tors, only one SAIC received more than half of its con­tract awards through competition.”

October 5th, 2004 | Uncategorized | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.