Posted on 05/05/2003 7:00:50 PM PDT by Brian S
By James Politi in Washington Published: May 6 2003 5:00 | Last Updated: May 6 2003 5:00
The US Chamber of Commerce has written to President George W. Bush urging him not to compromise his administration's commitment to "open government procurement" when awarding contracts in post-war Iraq.
Thomas Donohue, the chamber's president and chief executive, said in the letter dated April 22: "Open competition government procurement rules apply to the governments of those countries that comprised the 'coalition of the willing' as well as those who did not join that coalition." He added: "We respectfully request that you continue to apply these principles of non-discrimination as you lead us forward in the quest to rebuild and remake Iraq into a free and prosperous nation."
Mr Donohue's appeal followed complaints from a number of US and European companies that they were unfairly excluded from the contest for reconstruction contracts because of the administration's decision to conduct closed bidding that included only a handful of well-connected US companies. In addition, some conservative US lawmakers had started to introduce legislation aimed at seeing companies from France, Russia and Germany - which opposed the war in Iraq - excluded from the rebuilding process.
But Mr Donohue warned that "these companies often have American subsidiaries, with hundreds of thousands of American employees".
"Even when they don't, we are obligated under the WTO's government procurement code to permit companies from all code signatories to compete for most government procurements, including those related to Iraqi reconstruction projects," he said. The US Agency for International Development's procurement department is responsible for awarding initial contracts for Iraqi reconstruction, worth around $1.7bn (€1.5bn, £1.1bn).
So far, Bechtel, the US construction group, has been the main beneficiary. It won the hotly contested $680m contract to rebuild Iraq's vital infrastructure. However, both Usaid and Bechtel have insisted that much of the work would be sub-contracted to other companies, including foreign ones.
You don't pay the piper you don't get the benefits.
Maybe the CC should see who it is hanging out with.
competitive bidding is appropriate - not to other countries though.
End of story.
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