Corrupt Sen. Stevens Arranges No Bid Contract for Alaskan Co. To Feed Bolivian Soliders at US Taxpayer Expense
Posted in H.L. News, Main Blog (All Posts) on June 22nd, 2007 8:17 am by HL
Here is a story about how a group Bolivian soldiers that are paid for by U.S. Taxpayers for trying to eradicate Bolivia’s Coca crop, are now being fed by an Alaskan company way up in the arctic circle, rather then being fed by people right there in Bolivia. OK first off, why is the US paying Bolivian soldiers to stop coca growing in their country? It’s part of the never ending war on drugs of course. There is more cocaine, and other drugs in this country then at anytime in the past. So you might think to yourself, “why bother paying Bolivians to stop the coca plantations when there could not possibly be more drugs available here then if we did nothing at all. Of course the reason is that The US Government does not want to stop the war on drugs, any more then they want to stop the war in Iraq, it’s all about money, and kickbacks. Now add this to the story. The price that the US pays to feed these Bolivian soldiers went up from just over $3 dollars a man to over 5 dollars a man. Why? Because of super corrupt Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens, who is already being investigated by the FBI, along with his son. Stevens somehow wrangled some crooked deal that now allows the Bolivians to be fed by a native Alaskan company called Olgoonik Management Services. Stevens also got a law passed that says that Alaskan firms are can get small business preference even if they are owned by multinational corporations. So now a company that could not be further away from Bolivia is taking care of these troops rather then a local company that can do the job much cheaper. No surprise that Dick Cheney’s Halliburton also had a hand in this deal, and of course the whole thing was a no bid contract. Shocking.
US: What Ted Stevens, Bolivian cocaine and Halliburton have in common; Or, how the Alaskan Inupiat Eskimos got a no-bid contract in South America from the U.S. government.
Corp Watch
Excerpt:
Deep in the jungles of the upper Amazon, in a land rife with coca plantations and drug runners, roughly 1,500 Bolivian soldiers and police camp out each night at U.S. taxpayer expense. They are offered three meals and a snack each day as part of a $31 million State Department effort to stop the cocaine trade at its source.
Until this spring, the troops were fed by a local Bolivian company, contracted to the United States through a competitive process for $3.34 per soldier per day. But in March, the same contract was awarded — without competition — to an Alaskan Inupiat Eskimo firm, Olgoonik Management Services, which is headquartered 180 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The new cost is $5.16 per soldier per day, an increase of 54 percent, or about $1 million more each year.
June 28th, 2007 at 8:44 am
Our government at it’s finest and caught yet again.