Jim Skamarakas

I am catching up, honest, I mean it this time.

The $2.25 billion program to help provide U.S. schools and libraries with Internet and other communications services is poorly managed and “extremely vulnerable” to waste, fraud and abuse, a congressional report released on Tuesday October 18th, 2005. The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations criticized the E-Rate program and the Federal Communications Commission, which administers the program, for inadequate safeguards to ensure funds were properly used.

Okay, now correct me if I am wrong here, but E-Rate program, run by the government, and it is not going well. Um, okay - where is the news here? Do we expect this to actually go well? Why did they not turn this over to a BID basis contract for a management company to run, who gets a % of the take they manage, and let them risk losing the contract and the employees jobs? And if they mismanaged it, the US Government could put them in jail? See, this is how we need to deal with these projects - hands off management with a stern threat of severe penalties if the private sector mismanages it. I am sure plenty of people want to handle this work. And with the risks and penalties if they do it badly.

I cannot find the original article on this, put it was reported by the Washington Post, and is all over the Internet. What I wanted to find was a copy of the actual statements issued.

Popularity: 1%