Monday, October 23, 2017

"FEMA Is Spending Billions, and Some Questionable Companies Are Getting Work"

BB:
Since Hurricane Harvey struck Texas on Aug. 25, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has awarded $2.2 billion in contracts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Government. That’s about twice what the agency typically awards over an entire year.

...

On Sept. 5, Gibbco LLC got a $74 million award to build mobile homes for Hurricane Harvey victims. Gibbco’s only public presence is a GoDaddy website, which lists neither a phone number, an email address, nor information about who runs the company. According to a contract database run by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Gibbco has five employees and annual revenue of $200,000; the address listed as its headquarters belongs to a house in a residential neighborhood in Longwood, Fla.

A phone call to a number associated with the company was answered by a man who refused to provide his name or answer questions, saying only, “We don’t give information away unless it’s approved by the government.” He referred questions to FEMA, which declined to answer them.