The Obama administration recently issued warnings to
contractors of potential sequestration-related spending cuts, but in the
meantime federal spending continues unabated, domestically and globally.
Some of the apparently indispensable projects include a
environmental public murals in Hebron and Jericho along with similarly themed summer camps and field trips for Palestinian children, alternative energy outings to Turkey, and assistance to mango growers and hotel operators in Pakistan.
The U.S. Agency for International Development said in a
public notice that “due to the failure of Congress to reach a deal on balanced
deficit reduction to avoid sequestration, the president on March 1, 2013, as
required by law, issued a sequestration order canceling approximately $85
billion in budgetary resources across the federal government for the remainder
of the federal fiscal year.”
USAID recently advised vendors that the agency “is taking
every step to mitigate the effects of these cuts, but … it is likely that your
company’s workforce, revenue, and planning processes may be affected.”
But that is not stopping USAID from reaching out to
contractors to carry out its new $700 million global “ecological-governance”
program.
The primary goal of the agency’s Restoring the Environment
through Prosperity, Livelihoods and Conserving Ecosystems, or REPLACE, program
is to strengthen the ability of governments and non-governmental organizations
around the globe to provide climate-change mitigation and adaptation, seascape
and landscape management, and other environmental and economic interventions.
Numerous other federal entities issued similar warnings via
the FedBizOpps contractor database.
Despite the advisories, new projects
continue to emerge while existing programs undergo expansion, from the
seemingly inconsequential – such as a $79,000 U.S. Trade & Development
Agency grant to send U.S. railway representatives on an exploratory mission to
India – to initiatives on a multi-billion-dollar scale.
Most notable is the Department of Defense’s extended
outsourcing of global counter-narcotics functions through its Counter
Narco-Terrorism Program Office, or CNTPO, a potential $15 billion contract
vehicle that has enriched – and will continue to enrich – Blackwater Lodge
& Training Center Inc.; Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems; ARINC
Engineering Services LLC; Raytheon Technical Service Company; and Northrop
Grumman/TASC Inc.
The report "DoD Prepares Follow-Up to $15 Billion Global Counterdrug Contracts" continues to be one of the Monitor's most regulalry visited articles, generating consistent visits and Google search hits nearly twenty months later.
The following list of federal procurement actions represents
an additional snapshot of recent contracts, requests for proposals and other
solicitations, both large and small. This nation-by-nation compilation is by no
means comprehensive but is designed to enlighten U.S. taxpayers about how the
federal government is spending – or intends to spend – their money.
GAZA/WEST BANK
The creation of environmental-themed public murals,
conducting student field-trips to “environmentally important sites” in Hebron and
Jericho and holding environmental summer camps for Palestinian children are
among programs that the Department of Agriculture’s U.S. Forest Service intends
to fund. And the USFS is procuring the services of the Palestinian Association for
Child Arts and Culture to carry out these tasks for youth in the city of
Hebron. The agency did not disclose the estimated cost.
Helping the Palestinian Authority to “build more effective
and competent public institutions that are accountable to the public and
respond to citizens’ needs” will cost $20.5 million under a contract that USAID
awarded to Development Alternatives Inc.
U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor founder Steve Peacock initially broke the story on the project’s unveiling last April for WND.com.
PAKISTAN
Current efforts to improve the competitiveness of small- and
medium businesses in Pakistan have been extended another 20 months, now that
USAID has raised Chemonics International’s contract ceiling to $93 million. The
current contract for the Pakistan Firms Project was slated to end April 15, but
with a $2.5 million increase, Chemonics will continue to provide technology
upgrades, skill development and other assistance to hotels, mango growers,
knitted-garment manufacturers and other Pakistani enterprises through December
31, 2014.
TURKEY
Alternative-energy industry representatives are getting free
hotel rooms and airfare to Turkey to explore ways to capitalize on the nation’s
energy boom. The U.S. Trade & Development Agency is offering a $537,000
grant to carry out the Smart Grid Upgrades to the Teias Electricity Transmission
Network Feasibility Study. According to the agency, “Turkey is facing a rapidly
rising demand in the midst of its bustling economic growth. The Turkish
government is consequently making a concentrated effort to explore alternative
sources of energy, such as wind, hydro and geothermal power as a way of meeting
this shortfall.”
Consequently, the Obama administration has decided that U.S.
taxpayers should shoulder the burden of that trip to Ankara.
UNITED STATES
Under its Adult Education and Immigrant Integration project,
the U.S. Department of Education awarded a $1.3 million contract to World
Education Inc. of Boston to design an initiative to “reduce linguistic,
academic, and employment barriers for skilled and low-skilled immigrants and
refugees, and to integrate them into the U.S. workforce and professions.”
A similar version of this article first appeared via WND.com on March 18, 2013. Under agreement with WND, rights have reverted back to the author, Steve Peacock.
U.S. Prepares for Casualties in Africa
The extrication of U.S. Special Forces injured in African military ventures soon will provide contractors with an additional revenue stream, now that the Obama administration plans to keep such vendors on stand-by, 24/7, for cross-continent airborne mobilization.
While the Pentagon’s reliance on private vendors to support international military operations is nothing new, plans to station such providers specific to such a large swath of Africa does deviate from prior procurement actions.
The Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing Airlift Support initiative will rely on outside assistance in the event that soldiers of U.S. Special Operations Command-Africa sustain traumatic medical emergencies, thereby requiring urgent transportation out of hostile zones.
Indeed, SOCOM-Africa places such urgency on its anticipated use of such Casualty Evacuation, or CASEVAC, services that, at a minimum, contractors must be capable of launching an airborne response with only a three hour notice.
The selected vendor likewise must possess the ability to be placed on heightened response and “be airborne within one hour of notification,” according a revised Performance Work Statement released April 16 that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor located via routine database research.
Despite this urgency, the vendor securing that contract largely will engage in cargo- and personnel airlift activities, plus a limited number of air-drop missions.
The “most likely” locations for such operations are Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia, according to the U.S. Transportation Command solicitation.
Kenya, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Uganda also fall within the Primary Operating Area, or POA, of this endeavor, the USTRANSCOM document says.
SOCOM-Africa will enable this expedited response-capability by stationing the contractor in Burkina Faso, a landlocked West African nation, it says.
A search of prior Tactical Combat Casualty Care and CASEVAC solicitations available via the FedBizOpps system shows that USSOCOM and other Department of Defense units typically and primarily seek only training and equipment.
Rather than soliciting continent-wide provision of emergency medical and flight assistance, those contracting actions generally have sought assistance to enable combatant commands to provide themselves with such medical assistance.
One USSOCOM contracting action representative of the government’s acquisition of CASEVAC “kits” and trauma-management training, for example, described a critical need for Special Operations combat forces to obtain new techniques and technology in support of “ongoing operations worldwide.”
Another Special Ops solicitation from late last year revealed a $40 million, two-year contract extension awarded to Tribalco, LLC, a Bethesda, Maryland-based maker of CASEVAC and other “soldier-survival” equipment.
USTRANSCOM did not disclose an estimated cost of the Africa-centric CASEVAC procurement.
In other U.S. military procurement actions specific to Africa:
This article originally appeared via WND April 28. Under prior agreement, rights have reverted back to the author, Steve Peacock.
Posted at 06:49 PM in Africa, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Commentary, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Libya, Mauritania, Military, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, North Africa, Senegal, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, U.S. Navy, U.S. Special Forces, White House, WND | Permalink | Comments (0)
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