Bajagua No Bid Contract
So
So much of what this administration does makes my smell o’ meter go off. What is the smell o’ meter? It is the common sense buzzer that goes off in my brain when I hear a story about how our government is running the business end of government.
“Ok,” you ask, “what are you blabbering about?” Here is the deal. I recently read an article in The Wall Street Journal that discussed a “no bid” contract the Administration awarded. The article was a bit of news on California’s neighbor city to the south, Tijuana. It appears that Tijuana is booming. As cities grow so does their garbage. By reputation, Mexico is not known for being the best at cleaning their garbage. Think Montezuma’s revenge after drinking the water. The city has a raw sewage problem.
Instead of doing the right thing and force Mexican industry to clean up their own sewage mess, the Mexican government allows business to dump the waste, which then drains into California. The Wall Street Journal article detailed that less than 60% of Tijuana’s sewage was treated in any way. I am unconvinced that anything the Mexican’s consider as treatment will match what a United States Garbage and Sewage facility would need to do to pass inspection. This means a huge amount of raw sewage barrels toward the US every day.
Believe it or not, that is not what is bothering me. Sure I want to force the Mexicans to take care of their internal garbage problems. However, I realize we must tread lightly in our international relations. I will leave my disdain for the US not getting Mexico to do the right thing for another day. Today I want to talk about domestic fraud and the type of domestic fraud that starts at the top. It is called the “no bid” contract. In a no bid contract, the government will award the right to do some government project to a company without ever taking bids from competing companies. Although there is a speed and efficiency to taking no bid contracts, in the greater scheme of government a bid process works best for everyone involved.
According to the Wall Street Journal, our government decided to “solve” the Tijuana waste problem by giving a huge “no bid” contract to clean up the garbage to a singular new company. The company is called Bajagua LLC. Bajagua is a start-up company. This means Bajagua LLC has no history, track record or experience in treating sewage and waste. “What?” you say! “We gave a start up, no nothing, inexperienced company, the right to complete millions of dollars of work and the responsibility of cleaning up a huge environmental mess without so much as asking if there were experienced companies which could bid on the job?” And I answer, “Yes!” Bajagua, LLC was granted the right to build and operate the Tijuana treatment plant in Mexico, which will stop the waste from coming to the US untreated.
Why would the government allow this to happen? According to the article Bajagua's ability to secure this ultra lucrative contract is directly related to its principle partners being in a position to give out campaign contributions to Congress members. Further, Bajagua used some high level lobbyists who in turn used their connections to push Congress members into agreeing to back the contract. Then the coup de gras, Bajagua obtained the direct support of Dick Cheney. With the White House behind the company there was no significant opposition to their contract. So, in 2003 Bajagua got the contract and now they are fast at work completing their job under the no bid contract.
I know this doesn’t reek of direct fraud. But it sickens me. It smells of cronyism and that smell is prevalent in our government. I would love an opportunity to investigate Bajagua’s billing process. I hope that if Bajagua is defrauding the government in any way that someone finds that evidence and turns it over. Let’s hope they aren’t. Let’s pray for California that Bajagua is doing a good job for our country and keeping beautiful Southern California safe.
Brian
