People
were going hungry in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, and this is who got a $156 million Federal Emergency
Management Agency contract to deliver 30 million meals in a
matter of weeks:
[Tiffany]
Brown, who is adept at navigating the federal contracting system, hired a
wedding caterer in Atlanta with a staff of 11 to freeze-dry wild mushrooms and
rice, chicken and rice, and vegetable soup. She found a nonprofit in Texas that
had shipped food aid overseas and domestically, including to a Houston food
bank after Hurricane Harvey.
By
the time 18.5 million meals were due, Tribute had delivered only 50,000. And
FEMA inspectors discovered a problem: The food had been packaged separately
from the pouches used to heat them. FEMA’s solicitation required “self-heating
meals.”
“Do
not ship another meal. Your contract is terminated,” Carolyn Ward, the FEMA
contracting officer who handled Tribute’s agreement, wrote to Ms. Brown in an
email dated Oct. 19 that Ms. Brown provided to The New York Times. “This is a
logistical nightmare.”
She
hired a wedding caterer! Brown’s suppliers, by the way, have threatened to sue
her over this episode.
 |
| "Dr." Tiffany Brown, from her company's website. |
FEMA can’t claim to be an innocent victim here—Brown had a history of canceled government contracts for failing to deliver food to the prison system and for getting an order with the Government Publishing Office wrong.
She
also had no experience in this kind of disaster relief work. FEMA hired her
despite having absolutely no reason to believe she could deliver what she was
promising.
EDITOR'S NOTE: According to her LinkedIn profile, Ms. Brown does have a degree from Walden University. On her company website, she claims it is a "Doctorate in Public Policy." Walden was one of America's first for-profit on-line diploma mills. - W. Collette
Just
as a two-person operation got a $300 million contract to
rebuild Puerto Rico’s electrical grid that was quickly canceled.
Incompetence,
corruption, or career employees strained to the breaking point by mismanagement
and lack of resources?
It
could be some of each, but what’s clear is that Donald Trump is failing
American disaster survivors.
