By For anyone who spent any length of time serving in USFK, this recent report of the spending waste going on within USFK should not be surprising:
Army commands in South Korea squandered millions of dollars because of lack of contract oversight, according to a 2008 Army Audit Agency investigation of Contracting Command Korea.
The audit reviewed contracts from 2002 through 2006. Reviews of 117 projects valued at about $17.6 million showed that 93 contained a total of about $2.4 million in waste.
Contract managers, most of whom were assigned oversight tasks as an extra duty, authorized at least $1.1 million in payments for work that didnft match contract specifications.
Contract Command Korea and U.S. Forces Korea did not respond to a Stars and Stripes request for comment on the report. [Stars & Stripes]
It is interesting that over in the ROK Drop Forums this very topic of waste in USFK contracting came up. So for many of us examples waste such as these in the report are not surprising:
$541,000 for 1,473 maintenance tasks on Humvees and heavy trucks that were never performed.
¡ $195,000 to repair mattresses, or about 91 percent of what it would have cost to replace them all. Many mattresses were later replaced anyway. In a prior review, the agency found that a contractor had replaced mattress covers but didn’t sterilize them or form new fillings before the mattresses were returned to soldiers.
¡ $147,200 to replace the perimeter fence at Camp Casey, even though the contractor simply repainted the old fence.
¡ $62,000 to replace the main drainage ditch at the former Camp Essayons after overstating the ditch length by 1,003 feet.
I can remember a few years back watching the renovation of a barracks building in front of our unit headquarter on Camp Casey being worked on. Due to this renovation our unit’s soldiers were living 3-4 to a room in the other barracks building we had. The construction company literally worked on this renovation for over a year, while out in Dongducheon entire apartment buildings in the “New Town” area of the city were being constructed even faster then a single barracks renovation.
Richard J. Moran
This wasn’t surprising to us considering how many people that were working on the renovation were standing around smoking cigarettes, sleeping, or drinking soju every day. Then again when there is no oversight this is what happens. So it was no shock to me when later the Colonel in charge of contracting in Korea, Richard Moran was arrested for taking bribes for building contracts to include in the 2nd Infantry Division area where Camp Casey is located. He became the highest ranking officer ever arrested for such a crime and ended up serving 54 months in jail.
$700,000 in bribe money found in COL Moran's mattress.
Moran was just the beginning of a long line of corruption cases over the years in USFK. Moran had other people working in his office arrested and even his wife was convicted of bribery. Then there was the Camp Giant fraud case, the Camp Kwangsa-ri fraud case, the SSRT corruption scandal, the USFK housing scams, and the Camp Humphreys expansion fraud as further examples of the rampant corruption going on. The last example the US Army Corps of Engineers who awarded the contracts for the Camp Humphreys expansion had their commander’s husband’s company awarded some of the contracts. The company her husband worked for CH2M-Hill was later implicated in the Senator Ted Stevens corruption trial as well.
If you do the math of the $17.6 million dollars worth of contracts that the Army Audit Agency inspected, %13.6 of the money was lost in waste. According to the article USFK contracts are worth in excess of $300 million annually. So let’s just say the contracts are $300 million then that means 13.6% of that number, which is $40.8 million dollars, is lost in fraud in USFK each year. This is the first time I have been able to put an actual number on the USFK gravy train in Korea, but now we know how much it is costing the US tax payer every year.
With USFK desperate for funding to pay for the relocation of the 2nd Infantry Division to Camp Humphreys, just clamping down on the rampant corruption would go a long ways towards helping to pay for the move. Considering today’s current economic situation you would think stopping the waste would be a top priority, but then again I thought stopping the fraud would be a focus after Colonel Moran was arrested and yet it still goes on at a tune of $40.8 million dollars every year to the US taxpayer. Will this time be any different?
7:52 am on February 7th, 2009 1
CCK is too busy ensuring every contractor on the penn has dotted every i and crossed every t for the last 20 years, and needlessly persecuting them, to worry about oversight on these big contracts. It’s a lot easier to go after the little fish I suppose.
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5:44 pm on February 7th, 2009 2
Leon,
Yeah, they can claim they are doing something about all the problems by kicking out US contractors who are getting screwed over for paperwork reasons. But they aren’t getting anything done for the Local contractors who continue to suck on the USFK tit. If they started going after the Locals they would have protests at every gate and we can’t have that. I honestly think that they should clean house at CCK and start over. They could set a good example “If you screw up for the next 20 years we will can you A**”
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January 3rd, 2010 at 11:33 pm
Scott Bonner is still in country apparently?
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8:06 pm on February 7th, 2009 3
I think many of the cases are due to unqualified people being given authority to do things they have little experience doing.
I remember a Major (at Shemya Alaska) authorizing $27,000 in new beds to be built for our base, then realizing later he was short on his budget and cancelled the order. The contract had been given to an outside contractor and could not be cancelled. The last I had heard the beds were destined for the salvage yard, while the Major got a “Meritorious Service Medal” for his performance for his one year on station.
At the same time while backing a vehicle out of a warehouse (in shemya Alaska) a mirror caught the side of the door and is was bent. A Msgt saw the incident and reported it. The spotter was given a “reprimand” and the driver (a Tsgt) was fined $450.00 for the repair of the mirror. He had four kids.
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January 1st, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Glad to be retired and done with it. I will stop before I write a book.
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8:17 pm on February 7th, 2009 4
So now that Phase I (identification) is complete, when will Phase II (punishment) take place?
Or will the “system” take the blame instead of the people who, in many cases, passed the point of “poor decision-making” and entered the realm of criminal intentions.
This report only identified extreme incompetence and outright theft. It didn’t even touch upon the even larger fraud, waste and abuse in cases where an inflated contract was correctly fulfilled.
Where are Kunsan’s 650 thousand dollar stoplights?
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8:26 pm on February 7th, 2009 5
A report is a report that gives politicians ammunition to tighten up on malfeascance and improper contracting, while blasting the military over inadaquate oversite. Certainly reason for reducing the defense budget by 5 Billion at least.
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7:18 am on February 8th, 2009 6
I remember when their where building the Hazmat facility at Yongsan, someone agreed to have a Korean Contractor “Build” the hazmat storage containers instead of getting pre-built ones from the states, thinking that they’d save monies, ended up costing lots more because all the modification afterwards to get this containers up to specs. Example one of the grounding cables that should have been solid core copper ended up being stranding speaker wire… And yes this was during the Colonels watch.
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8:21 am on February 8th, 2009 7
Was this 40 million wasted each month or year?
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10:35 am on February 8th, 2009 8
The audit looked at $17.6 million in contracts and found that $2.4 million of those contracts was waste. So if you do the math that means 13.6% of that $17.6 million of those contracts they audited was waste.
The article said that there was $300 million worth of contracts annually in USFK. So if you do the math and figure out what 13.6% of $300 million is that is how you get $40.8 million of waste each year.
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February 8th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Testing threaded comments
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February 8th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Threaded comments are a great feature that makes it easier for readers to follow or ignore multiple exchanges among commenters.
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February 8th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Threaded comments are a great feature that allows readers to follow or ignore multiple exchanges among commenters.
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3:46 pm on February 8th, 2009 9
$40 mil, that’s nothing. Ain’t this Korea?
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9:08 am on February 19th, 2009 10
I blame the contracting officers. They’re supposed to be the oversight. Of course when a white envelope is passed to look the other way or allow a little slack, that’s when standards become guidelines then suggestions and projects that should take a few months end up taking a year.
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1:34 am on January 1st, 2010 11
Looks like the KBSC in Yongsan is under investigation again. Heard the big gs boss director got relieved until its over. that guys been there since the late 80s or early 90s.
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January 1st, 2010 at 9:14 am
You must be talking about Jude what’s-his-name.
Your wording is a little confusing. If he’s been relieved – that sounds like he’s done – regardless of the outcome.
Are you sure it’s not something like administrative leave?
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January 1st, 2010 at 8:00 pm
I searched for kbsc yongsan and jude. The name is jude shea. I heard there is money issues, again, and that he my be in limbo during the investigation. I had friends work up there before and have heard many negative things. I was hoping someone could explain this us on this. Why isnt in the stars and stripes? Did the bigshot gs14 or gs 15 or whatever get relieved? How could this guy be here 20 years with the 5 year rule? How does he live on base?
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