Audit: Pentagon overpaid oilman by up to $200 million

Audit: Pentagon overpaid oilman by up to $200 million
Washington Post, March 17, 2011
Posted: 2011-03-29 11:04:19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pentagon-overpaid-oilman-millions-audi...

A Pentagon audit has found that the federal government overpaid a billionaire oilman by as much as $200 million on several military contracts worth nearly $2.7 billion. The audit by the Defense Department’s inspector general ... estimated that the department paid the oilman “$160 [million] to $204 million more for fuel than could be supported by price or cost analysis.” The study also reported that the three contracts were awarded under conditions that effectively eliminated the other bidders. Harry Sargeant III, a well-connected Florida businessman and once-prominent Republican donor, first faced scrutiny over his defense work in October 2008, when he was accused in a congressional probe of using his close relationship with Jordan’s royal family to secure exclusive rights over supply routes to U.S. bases in western Iraq. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), who led the probe, ... said in a statement Thursday that the report “confirmed what we found in 2008: the International Oil Trading Company overcharged by hundreds of millions of dollars while the Bush administration looked the other way.” Waxman called on Sargeant to repay the Pentagon.

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