The U.S. Department of State is arranging the construction of two prison facilities outside Haiti's capital of Port au Prince. The project, with an estimated top-cost of $10 million, includes a 150-bed prison and 200-bed womens prison in Petit Goave and Cabaret, Haiti, respectively. State tentatively scheduled a "pre-proposal conference and site visit" for prospective prison-industry contractors in Port au Prince for February 5-6, 2013.
Source document: Solicitation #SAQMMA13R0067.
Palestinian police stations in the West Bank soon will undergo modernization of their information technology systems courtesy of the Obama administration, which is arranging to retrofit the law enforcement facilities with new IT equipment.
U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor has discovered, however, that details of the endeavor largely remain shrouded in secrecy.
The U.S. Department of State recently disclosed the $268,000 contract via the FedBizOpps database, where the Monitor located the award during routine research. Despite finding in the database Contract Award no. SGE50012C0109 – which merely refers to Solicitation No. SGE50012R0120 – an exhaustive search produced zero results for the solicitation and supporting records such as a Request for Proposals or a Justification for Other Than Full and Open Competition, or JOFOC , document.
The State Department either did not open the endeavor to competitive bidding or simply neglected to publicly make available – as required by federal contracting regulations – an initial solicitation for bids.
Even in the case of the contractor, Excellent Systems Inc., whose location is listed as “Al Falah Building-Fourth floor, Al Quds Street, Ramallah, West Bank” – the Monitor could not locate an Internet presence for the company.
A Google search for Excellent Systems produced a hit reading “Feb 17, 2006. … Our current focus is to implement web-based information portal systems, largely using Microsoft technologies. These are web sites either on the … www.excellentsystems.us/.”
Any attempt to click through to the site, however, only leads to the message “Directory Listing Denied. This Virtual Directory does not allow contents to be listed.”
The West Bank police project is unrelated to other – significantly more costly – U.S.-funded initiatives. As the Monitor recently reported, the Obama administration had separately committed $300 million toward West Bank and Gaza construction projects , expenditures deemed critical toward attaining the “success of a future Palestinian state.”
It is also separately slated an additional $750 million for what is known as the Infrastructure Needs Project Phase II.
The combined value of these initiatives equals about a quarter of U.S. Agency for International Development assistance to the Palestinians since 1994. Indeed, to accommodate the agency’s growing West Bank-Gaza portfolio, USAID recently began a recruitment campaign for a senior technical and policy adviser.
The position is designed “to help strengthen and advance infrastructure development and capacity strengthening,” according to a Personal Services Contract document. The selected individual contractor will serve as the administration’s “primary adviser” on such issues, which the document acknowledged are “often surrounded by an unusually high degree of political sensitivity, especially as they relate to potentially controversial, high profile Middle East peace process issues.”
The adviser will work with key stakeholders within the Palestinian Authority “to help build the institutions and foundational infrastructure of a viable, democratic Palestinian state living in peace and security with Israel.”
“President Obama’s goal of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains a core United States (U.S.) national security objective and the long-term focus of the USAID West Bank and Gaza,” it added.
A similar version of this article originally appeared via WND.com Oct. 29, 2012.
Continued modernization of the Mexican criminal justice system purportedly will help stem "the drug-fueled violence that has threatened citizens on both sides of the border," according to the Obama Administration. Obama through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) consequently has launched a new program called the Mexico Promoting Justice Project, also known as PROJUST, which will attempt system reform in several Mexican states.
PROJUST will infuse an unspecified level of additional taxpayer dollars to "support comprehensive criminal justice reform that adheres to Mexican and international human rights standards implemented at state and federal levels."
USAID/Mexico seeks to enhance broader U.S. and Mexican government efforts "to mitigate conflict,
reduce impunity, and promote a more transparent and efficient justice system." PROJUST specifically will support the Merida
Initiative, a partnership the two nations launched in 2008 to share
such responsibilities.
The U.S. Congress appropriated $1.6 billion since the initiative started, according to the U.S. Department of State.
PROJUST is considered to be the "USAID flagship project" that will enable the Obama Administration to achieve the following results:
1) Legislative framework enacted for criminal justice reform; and
2) Strengthened institutional and human capacity to implement criminal justice reform.
USAID anticipates awarding a five-year cost reimbursement completion contract for PROJUST, which is expected to begin around July 2013.
The U.S. government yesterday took the next step towards partly financing environmental cleanup projects in China. As U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor previously reported, the U.S. Trade & Development Agency (USTDA) last month issued a Scope of Work related to a series of groundwater remediation initiatives in China—projects for which that nation intend to infuse (USD) $5.5 billion of its own money through 2020 (Monitor, March 16).
Nonetheless, USTDA awarded a $44,000 contract to Ascendant Program Services, LLC, a Bethesda, Md.-based infrastructure consulting firm, to embark upon a "definitional mission," or DM, to China. (Contract award #USTDA-CO201261140).
Despite the seemingly inconsequential price tag of the DM, it is one of several potential exploratory missions for which USTDA might fund—standard steps that the agency typically takes, such as the crafting of next-step “feasibility studies”—before arranging much larger financing of the actual remediation projects.
Ascendant now will travel to Beijing and two other cities that the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection has identified as "priority locations for groundwater and soil remediation projects."
The contract is one of a trio that the company secured from USTDA since last year. The agency awarded Ascendant a $35,000 contract, for example, to perform a feasibility study of an emergency call center project for the Government of Ukraine.
Likewise, in 2011 it separately awarded it a $50,000 contract to carry out a definitional mission to Brazil, where it was to evaluate possible USTDA funding of airport modernization projects.
As a follow-up measure to that Ascendant mission, the agency last week agreed to give a $485,000 “technical assistance” grant to the Rio de Janeiro State Transport Secretariat toward such airport projects. The Secretariat will not use the money for actual modernization of transportation infrastructure; rather, the funds will help the Rio state authority to “update its statewide airport plan and develop a funding strategy to modernize and expand the state's airport and heliport networks,” USTDA announced.
There is an “urgent need” to fund the project, USTDA justified, as Brazil is experiencing “rapidly increasing air traffic” while also preparing for an influx of visitors due to the upcoming World Cup and Olympic Games.
The U.S. government is reaching out to the private sector for help in implementing a new municipal crime-prevention program across the nation -- across the nation of El Salvador, that is.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) estimates just a $25 million price tag for the "El Salvador Crime and Violence Prevention Project" (Solicitation #SOL-519-12-000002); it should be noted, however, that the endeavor is only the latest in a series of such multi-year, U.S.- funded initiatives in El Salvador, which the agency says has "one of the highest rates of non-political violence in the world."
In the last four years, USAID has funded three key prevention programs: Crime and Violence Prevention Project (CVPP), currently being implemented by Research Triangle Institute International; the Regional Youth Alliance Project (AJR), currently being implemented by Creative Associates; and, Strengthening the Judicial System project implemented by Checchi Consulting. Together, these programs have supported the [Government of El Salvador] (GOES) as it improves the capacity of municipal government, civil society and communities to: better analyze crime patterns; plan and implement activities to combat crime and violence; and, measure the impact of interventions.
The selected contractor will be tasked with exploring "the greater use of science and technology to target crime and violence prevention" as well as employing "creative responses and approaches in order to achieve the desired results," according to the Statement of Work (SOW).
Among the results desired for this Central American nation is modifying its Mano Dura, or "Iron Fist," approach to contending with gang violence. USAID says this approach alone will not solve the problem, as heightened investments in law enforcement have taken away from national investments into economic growth. Likewise, according to the SOW:
The root causes of violence and gang activity are largely understood to include income disparity and issues of significant social inequality... Additional sources of insecurity include limited employment and education opportunities, large numbers of readily available small arms, rapid and disorganized urban growth without adequate services, and lack of societal support to prevent at risk youth from being recruited into gangs.
USAID expects to award a three-year base contract with two possible option years.
(Image caption: MS-13 gang graffiti in San Salvador.)
Construction of a new detention facility costing upwards of $100 million tentatively is planned for Afghanistan, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers revealed today in a Sources Sought notice. (#W5J9JEDETENTIONFACILITY). The Army emphasized that it is assessing potential sources capable of designing and building such a facility; it is not seeking bids on the endeavor.
As the Monitor recently reported, the Obama administration has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into supporting Afghanistan criminal justice entities and will spend millions more by the end of the year (See: "Afghanistan police get millions in U.S. funding; At same time, White House slashes support for state, local officers" -- June 25, 2011)
According to the above-mentioned notice, which the Monitor located via routine database research:
This Project is not currently authorized or funded and this announcement does not constitute any commitment on the part of the Government. No proposals are being requested or accepted with this synopsis.
Information from contractors is due July 6.
FOR ADDITIONAL REGIONAL COVERAGE, PLEASE VISIT THE MONITOR'S AFGHANISTAN PAGE.
(This article was modified July 2, 2011)
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