A sheet-y deal
Duo got $30M pact for P.R. tarps, couldn’t deliver
A FLORIDA company was awarded $30 million in federal contracts to provide emergency supplies to storm-ravaged Puerto Rico — but failed to deliver a single item, a new report says.
Bronze Star LLC landed the pricey contract to provide emergency tarps and plastic sheeting despite it being in existence for less than three months, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency canceled the contracts earlier this month.
No money was paid out, but millions in disaster funds were tied up during the nearly four weeks between the day FEMA awarded the contracts and the day it terminated them, the AP reported.
Formed by two brothers in August, Bronze Star was based out of a home in the town of St. Cloud and had never before won a government contract or delivered tarps or sheeting.
FEMA still awarded the company two contracts to ship 500,000 tarps and 60,000 rolls of plastic sheeting.
More than a half dozen other firms also bid, but FEMA said it could not provide further details.
Co-owner Kayon Jones said the supplies were held up because the bulk of the raw materials came from Houston, which was hit hard by Hurricane Harvey. Jones added that he reached out to FEMA for more time and permission to order tarps from a Chinese supplier but the government denied the request.
“We were trying to help. It wasn’t about making money or anything like that,” Jones told the AP.
The U.S. government has since restarted the process to supply the badly needed emergency coverings to Puerto Rico where thousands remain homeless two months after Hurricane Maria devastated the island.
FEMA spokesman Ron Roth said the agency’s review process was “somewhat expedited” after Hurricane Maria to respond as quickly as possible to the emergency. But he stood by the decision to select Bronze Star .
“Submissions from potential contractors are objectively evaluated, and a contract is awarded based on the highest-rated submission,” Roth said.
The revelation comes a month after the FBI launched an investigation into a $300 million government contract awarded to a tiny Montana company to help rebuild Puerto Rico’s decimated power grid. The contract has since been canceled.