Really, What Can A Bureaucrat Accomplish?

https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2019/a20009.pdf  Read the 63 page report!

From the report:

In May 2006, the OIG completed A Review of the FBI's Handling and Oversight of FBI Asset Katrina Leung. Footnote 38 The review included the FBI's handling of Katrina Leung, one of the FBI's highest paid, long-term counterintelligence CHS's who allegedly also worked for the People's Republic of China, and the performance and management issues relating to her case. 

The OIG concluded that the FBI's inattention to oversight and supervisory mismanagement permitted the long-term CHS access to sensitive FBI information and to engage in an intimate relationship with her handling agent, both of which continued over an 18 year period. The review made 11 recommendations, including recommendations to improve FBI CHS validation   procedures and practices.

This was under Mueller and yet nothing was done to the red agent or the FBI agent!

In October 2013, the OIG completed A Review of the FBI's Progress in Responding to the Recommendations in the OIG Report on the FBI's Handling and Oversight of Katrina Leung, a follow-up review of the 2006 Katrina Leung Review. Footnote 39 

The 2013 review found that the FBI had implemented 5 of the 11 recommendations from the 2006 Katrina Leung Review and, as shown in Table 1 below. In October 2015, the FBI provided the OIG responses to the 6 remaining recommendations and those recommendations remained on hold/pending with OIG as of August 2019. Footnote 40

7 years to to implement 5 of 11 recommendations!

13 years later the remaining 6 still not implemented!

Under Mueller and Comey!

This is bureaucracy at its finest!

The Bureaucrat hides behind process, they write procedures which are so convoluted no one can accomplish anything in a reasonable time.

Let me cite a personal story. In 2009 my company bid a project with the USACE (United States Army Corps of Engineers). It was a "construct only" project. The USACE did the design out of their Omaha, Nebraska office. The project was to be done at a military base in NC.

We were low bid but our bid has a 30 page list of exceptions and clarifications.

I was called in to review the EC's with the USACE. After three days of meetings, their lead Project Manager and Sr. Contracting Officer asked one final question. 

It was:

Will you build the project for your initial offering if we choose to disregard all the EC's?

I said no I would retract our bid.  I should have known then our bid must have been too honest! LOL! 

Finally we agreed that my company would proceed to build and that each EC would be addressed at the time it was necessary and if it caused added cost or time we would negotiate a reasonable conclusion.  I had this wording added to the contract!

So first three months in I submit a change order request for $2.8 million dollars and code changes to meet state requirements. 

Immediately the COR is rejected. 

I stop work and request explanation.

In our meeting I explain that the USACE has specified Colorado Highway Codes and Standards in their design, their Contracting Officer (a nice lady, but really unaware) asks me why is this a big deal?

So, I explain the roadway we would have to build requires 18 inches of asphalt put down on 8 inches of compacted stone. Where as in NC it is 8" of asphalt and 4" of compacted stone. 

Since I took exception to these requirements, my bid included meeting NC codes and standards.

She directs me to "build in accordance with the drawings", a standard bureaucratic practice. So, I explain to her that is why I submitted the COR, if that is what they want it will add $2.8 million dollars to the contract. She then approves it!

I asked her, do you really want me to do this? She says why not? So, I explain,  the NC Department of Transportation Inspectors will never approve the work. So she directs us to proceed and says, we will handle the HCDOT inspectors.

So, I proceed, but I called the local inspectors and give them a heads up.

Long story short, the Inspector sends a letter to the USACE notifying them the dwgs submitted by my company are rejected! Construction can not proceed!

In the end, the USACE approved $16 million dollars in approved change orders (original contract was $80 million), the project was 9 months late. After completion they paid my company another $11 million dollars to come back and fix things North Carolina state inspectors rejected after installation.

Had the bureaucrats not hung on to their "process" of not fixing a flawed bid during bid negotiation, they would have gotten an $80 million dollar job with about $5 million dollar change orders for simple design growth on time. 

Instead they spent $107 million dollars for an $85 million dollar project and got it 9 months late! 

The USACE is a joke, it is filled with over educated engineers and lawyers who have little to no experience in real construction or contract law. They simply know they can outlast a company by dragging out decisions.