Auditors Questioned $212.3 Million in Charges From KBR

Auditors Questioned $212.3 Million in Charges From KBR
Critic of Halliburton Contracts Releases Report, Urges Hearings
By Charles R. Babcock
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 12, 2005; Page E02
Pentagon auditors have questioned $212.3 million -- about 13 percent -- of $1.69 billion that a Halliburton Co. subsidiary charged the government over the past few years, mostly for importing fuel to Iraq under a no-bid contract.
Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), a longtime critic of Halliburton's large contracts supporting U.S. troops in Iraq, released summaries yesterday of five audit reports that the Defense Contract Audit Agency did of work performed by Kellogg Brown & Root in 2003 and 2004. Four of the five reports covered contracts to provide fuel. In one case, the auditors challenged 47 percent of the $28.7 million in spending.
In one update of an audit report that Waxman released earlier, the DCAA reduced the questioned costs from $108 million to $86.1 million out of a work order now valued at $887.3 million. In the reports on fuel imports, auditors criticized KBR for not negotiating new prices with a vendor in Kuwait after the initial rush when the war started. They also questioned why KBR agreed to pay subcontractors in Turkey more than the negotiated price for fuel after prices in the market rose suddenly....