Word: armorgroup
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Accountability Project, a nonprofit public-interest group that promotes government and corporate accountability - was settled out of court; its terms bar the parties from speaking about the case, and Sauer's attorney says neither she nor her client can speak to TIME. Sauer, however, isn't the only former ArmorGroup employee to make similar allegations about the embassy contract. On Sept. 9, James Gordon, the former operations director at the embassy, filed a suit against his former employer, claiming it forced him out after he blew the whistle on its misconduct. "Their goal was to maximize their profits, provide...
Taken together, the complaints help explain how such a high-profile contract, flawed from the outset, could have led to the current scandal. ArmorGroup's record at the embassy has not been impressive; according to the POGO letter, nearly 90% of the Americans and other Western expats quit in the first six months of its contract, which meant there had to be constant training of new staff and a dissolution of any semblance of team cohesion. At one point, 18 guards were not at their posts, requiring embassy personnel to be redeployed to fill critical gaps. The State Department said...
...ArmorGroup's employees did not even appear to be fully aware of the ground rules of their contract. In one incident, according to POGO, guards set out from the embassy at night, armed and dressed in turbans, equipped with the embassy's night-vision equipment, to secure portions of the road between the embassy and the guard base in Camp Sullivan several miles off. But this action violated ArmorGroup's contract, which is only for static security - that is, guards at specified posts. (The role of traveling bodyguards for embassy personnel is contracted out to another firm, Xe, the company...
Even before the POGO letter to Secretary Clinton, the ArmorGroup contract was under scrutiny. The State Department issued the first of eight "deficiency letters" in July 2007, the same month ArmorGroup took over embassy security. But after each complaint, the company somehow persuaded the State Department that the problems were being addressed. In April 2008 the State Department's contracting officer warned this was the company's "final opportunity" to correct shortcomings, and a September 2008 letter declared termination was being considered. In the end, however, the department renewed the contract until July...
...problems have been exacerbated by the global consolidation of the security industry. In 2008, ArmorGroup was bought by G4S, the largest security company in the world. G4S also bought ArmorGroup's rival, Wackenhut, which now runs ArmorGroup in the new conglomerate. Before they found themselves under the same big tent, Wackenhut and ArmorGroup had competed for the U.S. embassy contract, which ArmorGroup won with a substantially lower bid. Now, Wackenhut has found itself managing the Kabul embassy contract anyway. In June, Wackenhut vice president Samuel Brinkley admitted to Congress, "We feel we can safely say that adequate guard services...