"An Idealist With The Scars To Prove It"

This story has everything. Puerto Rico is struck by a hurricane, and is in desperate need of food aid. FEMA issues a contract for 30 million meals to a contractor with only one person employed there, the 'minority female' owner (who is, under contracting laws, entitled to preference points in terms of contract awards for both of those statuses). She sub-contracts to a completely inadequate set of wedding caterers, who produce 50,000 of the 18.5 million meals needed at the first deadline. These meals also are not properly assembled, lacking a self-heating mechanism like an MRE's chemical heater. These have to be shipped separately.

So naturally, she's suing the government for terminating her contract.
Ms. Brown described herself in an interview as a government contractor — “almost like a broker,” she said — who does not keep employees or specialize in any field but is able to procure subcontracted work as needed, and get a cut of the money along the way. She claims a fashion line and has several self-published books, and describes herself on Twitter as “A Diva, Mogul, Author, Idealist with scars to prove it.”

After Tribute’s failure to provide the meals became clear, FEMA formally terminated the contract for cause, citing Tribute’s late delivery of approved meals. Ms. Brown is disputing the termination. On Dec. 22, she filed an appeal, arguing that the real reason FEMA canceled her contract was because the meals were packed separately from the heating pouches, not because of their late delivery. Ms. Brown claims the agency did not specify that the meals and heaters had to be together.

She is seeking a settlement of at least $70 million.

6 comments:

MikeD said...

And to think... I remember folks screaming about $120 toilet seats back in the 1970s. Graft was chump change back then.

Grim said...

I was thinking that everybody always complains about KBR, but KBR will deliver 30 million MREs if they contract to do it.

raven said...

Some very uncomplimentary words could be used to describe her role here.

Texan99 said...

You probably don't like her because patriarchy.

E Hines said...

Not uncomplimentary, rather, truthful.

This privileged white male would like to see her burned down for her fraud. And she can't have my white privilege; that would be cultural appropriation. Nor will I brook her suing because she was called out for her failure to perform--that's a microaggression. In spades.

Eric Hines

james said...

When I first heard a thumbnail of this story, I wondered if her bribe was too small for the powers-that-be there to stay bought.