Tuesday, October 30, 2007

So, What's Wrong With Privatizing Government?

Just that there are some things government does that cannot bear interruption, particularly by surly contractors that want to get paid:
The Army manager and his assistant wondered if KBR could really do this. If soldiers or officers tried to pull this same stunt in the old Army, the general would court-martial them, and they could be sent to prison. However, according to federal contracting rules, a company has the right to stop work if that company is risking a large amount of its own money and the government is unable to pay due to funding problems. Clearly, wartime conditions should be an exception when soldiers' lives are on the line, but there is no legal basis for a general to force a company's employees to work beyond the contracting rules. The company or its employees can stop work or go home, and there is nothing that military commanders can do about it, except seek drawn-out legal-contract remedies in the courts back in the United States.

The Army logistics contract manager and the camp's general officer faced the disaster of having to explain to their men, their superior officers, and the public that there might not be any food, water, or other vital supplies the next day because the Army didn't have a backup plan. Since the Army had outsourced these traditionally Army-provided services to one company, they did not have any choice. The Army was short of troops, so there were no back-up soldiers to take on these tasks.

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