- Reaction score
- 146
- Points
- 710
Coast Guard Failed to Properly Oversee Contracts, Officials Say
Washington Post, February 8, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/07/AR2007020702334.html
More on the "National Security Cutter":
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/01/gnscgflaws070131/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/26/AR2007012601901.html
Mark
Ottawa
Washington Post, February 8, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/07/AR2007020702334.html
Even as contractors built patrol boats with buckling hulls and a large new cutter with structural flaws, a U.S. Coast Guard review gave their performance high marks last year, extended their deal for nearly four years and paid them a multimillion-dollar bonus, government investigators said.
Coast Guard analysts evaluated only boats, aircraft and equipment systems that had been delivered under its troubled $24 billion, 25-year fleet-replacement program, known as Deepwater, disregarding defective ships under development by companies led by Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, Homeland Security Department Inspector General Richard L. Skinner said at a congressional hearing Tuesday...
Adm. Thad W. Allen, Coast Guard commandant, met with Lockheed and Northrop executives Jan. 19 to negotiate terms for the contract renewal and has reorganized the service's contracting staff to beef up and unify their authority.
Allen is seeking to set new performance guidelines, toughen rules that an outside entity certify boats and planes produced under Deepwater, and take a bigger role in determining the work done by subcontractors, Skinner said.
"He recognizes we, the Coast Guard, need to get a grip over these contractors," Skinner said.
Skinner's office reported on Jan. 29 that the Coast Guard's new, 418-foot National Security Cutter -- the largest ship the service has ever commissioned and the cornerstone of its new fleet -- suffers from design flaws that even when corrected will curtail its operating days by as much as 20 percent. The errors also helped nearly double the cost of the first two of eight planned vessels, from $517 million to about $1 billion, depending on negotiations and repairs ultimately required. None of the cutters has yet entered Coast Guard service.
The ship's "design and performance deficiencies are fundamentally the result of the Coast Guard's failure to exercise technical oversight over the design and construction of its Deepwater assets," the report said.
In December, the Coast Guard also docked eight 123-foot cutters retrofitted under the program and based in Key West, Fla., after determining they were not seaworthy. That came after the Coast Guard had spent nearly $100 million...
More on the "National Security Cutter":
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/01/gnscgflaws070131/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/26/AR2007012601901.html
Mark
Ottawa