Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Army steps up warzone contracting oversight

Army steps up warzone contracting oversight: "The U.S. Army has more than doubled the amount of Contracting Officers Representatives, or CORs, in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last year in an effort to improve oversight and help rebuild local communities, service officials said.

'We've spent a lot of time determining how best to get the oversight out there,' said Col. Timothy Dixon, military deputy to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Procurement.

Within the last year, the number of CORs in Iraq has jumped from a 59-percent fill rate up to a 94-percent fill rate, Dixon said. Similarly, the number of CORs in Afghanistan has more than doubled, jumping from a 38-percent fill rate in January of last year to an 80-percent fill rate by January of this year.

In short, the Army has added hundreds of CORs to the war zone to help oversee local contracting and ensure that goods and services arrive as paid for, Dixon said."