A politically connected firm with a record of corruption endangers a gem of American history and culture. Why am I not surprised?
The drainage-canal pumps were custom-designed and built under a $26.6 million contract awarded after competitive bidding to Moving Water Industries Corp. of Deerfield Beach, Fla. It was founded in 1926 and supplies flood-control and irrigation pumps all over the world.Maybe the worst-case interpretation isn't warranted- they say it was competitively awarded, and an unprecedented technical challenge on short notice.
MWI is owned by J. David Eller and his sons. Eller was once a business partner of former Florida Gov.
Jeb Bush in a venture called Bush-El that marketed MWI pumps. And Eller has donated about $128,000 to politicians, the vast majority of it to the Republican Party, since 1996, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
MWI has run into trouble before. The U.S. Justice Department sued the company in 2002, accusing it of fraudulently helping Nigeria obtain $74 million in taxpayer-backed loans for overpriced and unnecessary water-pump equipment. The case has yet to be resolved.
But, given all the other sh*ttiness in how NO has been handled, and given the political connections involved, and given that the Republicans running this country never fail to do the worst possible job, "benefit of the doubt" has no relevance here. There is no doubt left that they are unrestrained in their corruption and incompetence.
3 comments:
All the pumps are working fine - "Really rockin'" according the USACE General in charge of the New Orleans District. No other company had built 60" diameter hydradaulically driven axialflow pumps except MWI Corp. The supplied 24 of these pumps in less 6 months from contract award in order to have them in place before the 2006 Hurricane Season. No other pump manufacturer in the World could have met that challenge.
MWI Corporation did Hundreds of Millions of Dollars worth of Project in Nigeria, most before Jeb Bush every entered into political life. The US Eximbank NEVER LOSS A SINGLE DOLLAR on any MWI project in Nigeria. In fact, Bill Clinton's Ambassadore to Nigeria asked MWI to help collect the arrearages on Projects for "FOB" Enron and GE.
If the Eximbank had supported more companies such as MWI and less like Boeing and GE, they would have had a better repayment record and there would less starvation in Africa.
The Jeb Bush - MWI Corporation partnership - Bush-El, was formulated to market village-level handpumps to help get water to Africa's poorest populations. Lack of potable water kills more Africans each year than does AIDS. Jeb Bush got involved after travelling to Nigeria as Florida's State Commerce Commissioner of behalf of a Florida Manufacturing and Exporting Company, MWI Corporation.
The Pumps to be marketed by Bush-El weren't going to be manufactured in the MWI's Florida facilities, but instead in the plant built in Nigeria by MWI Corporation and its Nigeria Partner. With competition in the African handpump market comming from places like India, it would have been impossible to compete successfully with an American made product.
Bush-El was created to help get poor, rural Africans clean drinking water. Of course, in MWI and Bush's case, "No good deed goes unpunished" the reams of bad publicity received for was in reality a humanitarian effort that could have accomplished far more than Bouno does to releave suffering and poverty in Africa.
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