Published April 13, 2006
Bottom Line West Side Story News Papers
Will The GAO Investigate The CINPAC/FREEDOM MRE Scandal?
Bungling Bureaucracy, Corruption, Cronyism or Racism?
 

This is my letter to the: Government Accountability Office
 

Gregory D. Kutz Managing Director, Forensic Audits and Special Investigations

Mr. Kutz:

     On August 28, 2001, the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals found that in 1986, the Federal Government Contracting Officer “mismanaged, breached and wrongfully terminated” the MRE-5 contract with Freedom Inc., the only Black Prime MRE Contractor in the program. CINPAC, the company that replaced Freedom in the MRE-6 contract, had been declared by the DOL as ineligible for the contract. Despite that declaration CINPAC has since received a billion dollars worth of no-bid, cost-plus MRE contracts. Those are documented facts. There are other situations that result from the apparently illegal contract with CINPAC that involved National Security during Operation Desert Storm… CINPAC could not deliver. It appears that Frank Bankoff, the Contracting Officer has either a desire to hurt Freedom Inc. or a desire to help CINPAC. It is clear that rules and regulations regarding process and procedure have been broken … Broken to the detriment of National Security, possibly for the purposes of cronyism, corruption and or racism.

      Mr. Kutz, I am asking you to look into the facts and issues of the MRE Program with regard to Contracting Officer Frank Bankoff, CINPAC and Freedom Inc. Though your expertise in these matters is surely more penetrating than mine, with your indulgence I humbly suggest the following questions as a good beginning in the quest for pertinent answers/information.

• Is it true that CINPAC was declared ineligible to participate in the MRE Program?
   

• Is it true that Contracting Officer Bankoff received a Department of Labor notification of CINPAC’s ineligibility for the MRE Program several days before he testified in court that CINPAC was indeed eligible…?
   

• Regardless of when Bankoff received the notification of CINPAC’s ineligibility for the MRE Program, what should he have done when he did receive the notification?
   

•  If Bankoff did not receive the information prior to his testimony, what was his obligation to the court after he received the information?
   

•  Is it true that the procurement regulations in effect at the time of the Department of Labor declaration of CINPAC’s ineligibility, required a three year waiting period after submitting a false application, before becoming eligible to again apply as a contractor for the MRE Program?
   

•  Was Bankoff showing favoritism to CINPAC?… If so, which was it a result of, carelessness or corruption? Did he lie to the court about CINPAC’s MRE Program eligibility?

• ...Or was Bankoff simply continuing the unfair treatment of Freedom Inc. which, according to the “Armed Services Board Of Contract Appeals” began when he mismanaged, breached and wrongfully terminated Freedom Inc.’s MRE-5 contract.
   

•  Was Admiral Keith W. Lippert, Director of the Defense Logistics Agency not aware of the Department of Labor declaration of CINPAC’s ineligibility for the MRE Program or the decision of the Armed Services Board Of Appeals when he wrote, on July 25,2005, a letter to Congressman Jo Bonner and in a similar letter to Senator Jeff Sessions that “Freedom unsuccessfully challenged this decision [not to award MRE-6 to Freedom] to the GAO and in U.S. District Court”?
   

•  Is it true that CINPAC has received over one billion dollars in MRE contracts since it’s initial illegal MRE-6 contract in 1986.
   

•  Since the declaration of  CINPAC’s ineligibility on May 23rd, 1986 has there been a declaration
  of eligibility regarding CINPAC?

I will be sending this letter to kutzg@gao.gov.

Wallace Allen, Publisher

West Side Story News Papers