joint theater support contracting command and issues related to it

Assignment: Research two articles on the web that pertains to the Joint Theater Support Contracting Command (JTSCC). What are the issues or problems within the framework or process of operating the JTSCC? Give real world examples.

The world is rife with conflict and disagreements. These disagreements, depending on their severity can result in war and many civilian deaths. Retaliatory efforts on the part of other countries can further exacerbate conflict causing still further damage to innocent civilians. These battles, particularly when religion is the basis, can last for many years and cause irreputable damage to communities and civilizations. From an economic perspective, people within the communities no longer have wealth or income by which to support their families. Companies are hesitant to locate within the area due primary to war and other forms of terrorism. Likewise, it is difficult to reestablish government as control and power systems are week. As a result, international aid is often needed to help support communities and countries that have been ravaged by war, struggle, and economic collapse. Recent the joint theater support contracting command has been used to help facilitate this process of economic oversight during periods of unrest. Although well intentioned this operation also has its issues that can ultimately harm. An example of the this occurred in 2001. Here, the United States had appropriated more than $85.5 billion to the Departments of Defense (DOD) and State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and other U.S. agencies for reconstruction in Afghanistan. Here, the Joint Theater Support Contracting Command was tasked with using funds for the establishment of security and development assistance projects (Brown, 2012).

The first issue, with visibility and accuracy of contract data. Due to the foreign nature of business activities and operations it is difficult to accurate police contractor data. In the case of Afghanistan, it was difficult for the joint theater support contracting command to properly oversee operation of contractors and their pricing. In the case of pricing, it is difficult to properly gauge the correct price of contracts in a foreign area. For one, these areas are difficult to ascertain and oversee as it relates to costs. This causes a litany of issues related to waste, fraud and abuse with the entire system. Foreign contracts, has incentive to raise pricing for contractors knowing funds will be backed by the United States government. The joint theater support contracting command also doesn’t know the best suppliers and contractors in the area due to the foreign nature of Afghanistan. As a result, contracts during this period were highly overstated and thus heavily influenced with fraud. Many of the contracts were inflated and thus fraudulent in nature. A real-world example occurred in 2001, with the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Here, the issues related to proper oversight and contract data began to emerge. Under the investigation, SIGAR found that JTSCC officials used inaccurate and incomplete data entry methods as it related to contractors in Afghanistan. This ultimately resulted in the C-JTSCC overstating its fiscal year 2009 contract obligations by about $2.6 billion (Otto, 2011). This billion-dollar oversight was the result of litany and issued related to the manner in which the joint theater support contracting command oversaw their contracting process. These issues were lack of proper data entry, inflated contract values on the part of Afghan contractors, lack of properly oversight of costs, and lack of technology integrity. For example, in the SIGAR report, the C-JTSCC reported more than $690 million in fiscal year 2009 contract obligations to Kabuljan Construction Company, when the actual value was $18 million. This contract overstatement was grossly inaccurate and much like many of the other contracts, resulted in large overstatement of obligations. In addition, according to SIGAR report, the C-JTSCC’s data included contracts that were made with non-reconstruction sources of funding because C-JTSCC’s contracting officials did not consistently record funding source information when entering in data into C-JTSCC’s data system. Here again, lack of proper oversight creates issues related to contract pricing and obligations. Typically, the joint theater support contracting command requires full completion of all documents, forms and check when awarding a contract. However, due to lake of oversight, SIGAR found nearly 6000 cases in which documentation was not completed properly. The documents were often missing critical information that was essential to awarding a particular contract. According to the SIGAR report more the funding source field was blank in more than 5,600 cases. Although contract documents are required to be complete and valid, C-JTSCC officials stated that funding source information was not always known when awarding a contract. This also calls into question the overall integrity of the contracts themselves. For one the joint theater support contracting command did not complete the information accurately nor did it review the documents correctly. This provided incentive for foreign contractors to inflate prices while also obfuscating other critical information within the documents themselves. This ultimately undermines the entire process and services offered by the joint theater support contracting command creating still further issues related to waste, fraud, and abuse. As the SIGAR report notes, nearly $2.6 Billion dollars of contracts could have potentially been rewarded to parties with inaccurate, incomplete and occasionally fraudulent documents. This is a waste of tax payer dollars which creates further skepticism in the overall operations of the joint theater support contracting command

Next, contracts themselves do not properly account for overall size and scope of the operations. Using contractors involves multiple planning considerations and can have tremendously negative impacts on an operation if they are not accounted for sufficiently. For one, the quality of the contractors must be accounted for when using them in conjunction with military operations. This is another issue as the JTSCC can not properly vet these contractors accurately. Contractor, may appears legitimate through the filing process, but their ability to properly account for the size and scope of the operation can vary dramatically. For example, contractors may not have the discipline and structure needed to mitigate the negative costs impacts for reconstruction. They may not have proper oversight themselves, which may result in project delays, higher costs, and incomplete work (Ricks, 2008)