Veterans

No Competition
Former Bechtel consultant portrays Halliburton bidding process as a “sham”

by David Phinney, Special to CorpWatch
September 14th, 2004

A former Bechtel consultant who worked on a proposal for a sweeping oil reconstruction contract in Iraq in 2003 calls the government’s competition a “sham” that was “rigged” from the start in favor of Halliburton subsidiary, KBR.

Appearing before a special panel of congressional Democrats on Sept. 10, the consultant, Sheryl Elam Tappan, said that she advised Bechtel to pull out as soon as she saw an official planning document (Restoration of Iraqi Oil Infrastructure Final Work Plan) in which the U.S. committed the work to KBR even before the contract was awarded. The work plan was withheld from Halliburton competitors until 2 weeks before proposals were due.

“Officials up and down the chain of command ignored our federal laws and regulations and the procedures that normally ensure fair play,” she told the panel of the Army Corps of Engineers, which awarded the controversial contract through its Fort Worth office. She said she'd never before seen "the arrogant and egregious ways in which the Corps treated Halliburton’s competitors.”

After the competition, on Jan. 16, 2004, two contracts were awarded. Halliburton was assigned work in southern Iraq for a top value of $1.2 billion and a second, valued for as much as $800 million, went to Parsons Energy and Chemical Group and the Worley Group of Australia for similar work in northern Iraq. Both Parsons and KBR are headquartered in Houston....

Full article:
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11525