Contractors assist in Haiti earthquake relief

Overwhelmed by the scale of devastation in Haiti after a Jan. 12 earthquake left thousands dead or homeless, federal agencies are turning to government contractors to support the relief and recovery mission.

As of Thursday morning, civilian agencies reported spending nearly $3.5 million on contracts to assist Haiti in its recovery efforts, according to figures available on the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation Web site, which tracks government contract spending. A notice attached to the data indicates that the figures reflect a "portion of the work" that has been awarded to date and that the reporting of Defense Department contracting data has been delayed

"Many contracting offices supporting Haiti earthquake [relief], particularly those relocated to the disaster recovery area, do not have access to their normal contract writing systems and thus have not been able to populate FPDS-NG contemporaneously with the contract awards they have made," the notice said. "Others have not had time to enter data due to the tempo of operations. It is impossible to estimate the impact this may have on the total numbers. As the operations tempo slows, we expect that the data will be entered and thus the accuracy in terms of total contracts awarded, and dollars obligated, will increase."

Nearly $4 million in contracts issued by the Navy's Military Sealift Command to rent ocean tugboats and barges have not yet been added to the procurement database, but were found on FedBizOpps, a government Web site that catalogs federal contracting opportunities.

The Military Sealift Command has issued nine other solicitations for Haiti relief in which contracts have yet to be awarded, according to FedBizOpps. The agency needs ships that can provide sleeping quarters for up to 1,800 Army and Navy personnel, a vessel to provide water and sewer services, and shuttles that can ferry service members from the ship to shore, according to Meghan Patrick, a spokeswoman for the command. The agency expects to award the contracts by the end of this week, she said.

Additional Defense Department contracting appears imminent. The Defense Logistics Agency's Joint Contingency Acquisition Support Office is working with the U.S. Southern Command to establish a contracting office in Miami for the relief efforts. The office will provide oversight and program management of Defense contractors, Pentagon officials said.

Civilian agencies have issued contracts that run the gamut of emergency supplies and services, including hand tools, life rafts and blankets.

The majority of contract spending, however, has focused on prepping Merchant Marine cargo ships to ferry equipment and supplies to the tiny Caribbean island. The Transportation Department's Maritime Administration has awarded $1.82 million in contracts to firms that manage their cargo ships.

Most of that money will go to Interocean American Shipping Corp. of Moorestown, N.J., which has been awarded three task orders off an existing Maritime Administration contract, worth a combined $1.4 million. The company, which manages the government-owned vessels, said two large cargo ships are ready to be deployed to Haiti at any time.

"We are ready to go," says Mitchell Walker, Interocean's vice president and general manager. "We expect to be there as soon as there is cargo."

In some cases, contractors specializing in emergency relief efforts are advertising their services directly to the government. The IPOA, a trade association of private contractors, posted a page on its Web site listing member companies "available and prepared to provide a wide variety of critical relief services to the earthquake's victims."

Doug Brooks, president of the IPOA, said the posting has received numerous page views but he was unsure whether it had resulted in any contracts.

The Homeland Security Department has been among the most active contracting agencies, issuing $1.5 million in contracts through the U.S. Coast Guard, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The three agencies are purchasing a variety of supplies and services including diesel engines, telecommunications equipment and translation services.

ICE also issued a $260,000 contract for "guard services" to the Geo Group Inc., a Boca Raton, Fla., company that specializes in providing "private corrections and detention management," according to its Web site. When the earthquake hit, more than 3,000 inmates reportedly escaped from the National Prison of Haiti in Port-Au-Prince, which was virtually destroyed. Uprisings were reported in several other Haitian jails. Details of the contract were not yet available.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, which has been among the most active federal agencies on the ground in Haiti, has reported only two contracts: one for medical kits and another to hire a Washington crisis management and disaster planning firm to report on response and recovery efforts.

GlobalOptions Inc., the parent company of James Lee Witt Associates, will receive just under $100,000 for an initial in-country assessment report. Witt, the firm's owner, served as President Clinton's FEMA director from 1993 to 2000. A company spokeswoman declined to comment on the contract.

All the civilian agency contracts issued for Haiti relief have been task and delivery orders or purchase orders from existing contracts. Citing the urgent need for services, agencies did not open a new competition for any of the work, data shows.

Forty-two percent of the civilian contracts for Haiti relief have gone to small businesses.