GOP lawmaker plans to ‘raise hell’ over report of wasted $135M

Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) said he plans to “raise hell” on the House floor Tuesday about a report that found a defense contractor, whose employees were investigated for alcohol and drug abuse in Afghanistan, wasted $135 million in taxpayer dollars.

“I’m going to raise hell about this on the House floor tomorrow,” tweeted Jones on Monday, linking to a write-up in The Washington Post about the findings of a recent Army contracting audit.

In its quarterly report to Congress, released in April, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) explained that an audit it had requested identified that Jorge Scientific Corp. had wasted the money.

In 2012, a video surfaced showing some of the contractor’s personnel drunk and high on drugs while working on a project in Afghanistan.

{mosads}Crowe Horwath conducted the audit on SIGAR’s behalf and identified nearly $135 million in “total questioned costs” by Jorge Scientific Corporation. The alleged wasted money was the result of “internal control deficiencies” where, in one instance, a subtractor for the company didn’t have proper paperwork documenting its expenditures. The company also did not comply with federal procurement law, the audit found.

SIGAR said the Army Contracting Command had awarded the company about $191 million to carry out a project that entailed providing specialized counterinsurgency experts and training Afghan National Security Forces.

Last week, Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio), the leaders of the Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee on Investigations, asked in a letter for a briefing on the expended costs.

The letter noted that in 2013, McCaskill raised concerns with the Army’s mismanagement and oversight of their contracts with Jorge Scientific.

She noted reports from former employees of “frequent abuse of alcohol and drugs in Kabul,” a “bar brawl” and “parties so loud they repeatedly attracted the attention of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security.”