The Federal Emergency Management Agency awarded a $156 million contract to a one-woman business that was tasked with sending 30 million emergency meals to victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
FEMA granted the contract to Tribute Contracting LLC, owned by Atlanta entrepreneur Tiffany Brown, on Oct. 3. But the contract was terminated by FEMA 20 days later after the company delivered just 50,000 meals—a fraction of what it was supposed to provide, according to documents obtained by Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Now, two Democrats on the panel are now asking House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy to subpoena FEMA for documents related to the agency’s failure to deliver emergency meals to Puerto Rico.
“It appears that the Trump administration’s response to the hurricanes in Puerto Rico in 2017 suffered from the same flaws as the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005,” Reps. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and Del. Stacey Plaskett, D-V.I., wrote in a letter to Gowdy, R-S.C. “Food is one of the most basic necessities for victims of natural disasters. This need is completely foreseeable—and in fact it was foreseen.”
Brown, Tribute’s only employee, told Oversight and Government Reform Committee staff FEMA awarded her the $156 million contract “because I was able to submit a proposal to supply 30 million meals at the cheapest cost.” She also said she “worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week to try and provide these emergency meals.”
To assist with delivering the 30 million meals, Brown subcontracted with two companies: Cooking With a Star, LLC, and Breedlove Foods Inc.
But according to Cummings and Plaskett, the two companies stopped making the meals when they weren’t paid in a timely manner.
Kendra Robinson, who runs Cooking With a Star, told the New York Times there are 75,000 meals that were prepared for FEMA currently in a warehouse in Atlanta.
Brown was notified her contract with FEMA had been terminated via email on Oct. 19.
“Do not ship another meal. Your contract is terminated,” Carolyn Ward, a FEMA contracting officer, wrote, according to the email obtained by the New York Times. “This is a logistical nightmare.”
Not only had Tribute fallen far short of delivering the millions of meals it was supposed to, but the company also failed to fulfill one aspect of FEMA’s solicitation, which required “self-heating meals.” Brown’s company packaged the food separate from the devices used to heat it, the New York Times reported.
Cummings and Plaskett criticized FEMA not only for awarding the contract to the small company, but also for failing to take note of Tribute’s history with government contracts.
In 2013, for example, the Federal Prison System terminated a $27,029 contract with Tribute for “not delivering” food it was required to.
The following year, the agency “de-obligated” a $57,645 contract with Tribute to provide bakery and cereal products because of the company’s “inability to ship/deliver products.”
Also in 2014, the Government Publishing Office “terminated for default” a contract with Tribute because of its “inability to produce the job per specifications.” Tribute was hired to produce 3,000 tote backs with the Marine Corps logo.
The Government Publishing Office deemed Tribute ineligible for contracts over $30,000 from 2016 to January 2019.
“Clearly, Tribute did not have sufficient financial resources of its own to support this expansive contract,” Cummings and Plaskett wrote. “Based on Tribute’s lack of experience in large-scale disaster relief and its limited financial capacity, FEMA should have raised serious questions about whether the company could meet the contract terms—especially since they concerned such a critical need.”
