The Defense Department is being forced to extend multimillion-dollar contracts for services in Iraq, including one with a firm under criminal indictment, because losing bidders have legally challenged the companies selected as replacements, according to a report from the Washington Post.
The Kuwaiti firm Agility, charged in November 2009 with overbilling food contracts worth $8.5 billion over four years for troops, civilians and contractors in Iraq, Jordan and Kuwait, recently received a $26 million, six-month contract extension because another Kuwaiti firm - Kuwait & Gulf Link Transport - challenged the April award of the food contract to Agility's replacement, Anham, a Dubai-based conglomerate.
A second firm, Fulcra Worldwide of Arlington, was awarded an extension worth $5 million on its strategic communications contract in Iraq with U.S. Central Command after Fulcra itself filed a claim against loss of the contract to another bidder, New York-based SOS International.
The Defense Logistics Agency, which supervises the food contract, decided to extend the Agility contract through April 2011 while the protest against Anham by another bidder is being adjudicated by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
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