The U.S. Defense Department’s largest single-facility construction project – a building in Germany – is plagued by rising costs and substandard work, congressional auditors found.
The Kaiserslautern Military Community Center at Ramstein Air Base was to be completed in early 2006 to serve up to 55,000 U.S. Army and Air Force personnel. The cost has risen to $200 million from the original $150 million, and the completion date is uncertain, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office report.
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Since construction started in November 2003 under the direction of the German government’s LBB-Kaiserslautern construction agency, the 844,000-square-foot center has had numerous problems including poor design, substandard workmanship and poor coordination of contractors, according to the GAO report.
A 121-page June 22 Air Force audit criticized service officials for not requiring that the contract include assurances that the contractor could be held liable if it was found incapable of performing the work.
Air Force personnel “did not effectively monitor the project’s status to limit cost,” according to the audit. “As a result, project costs could increase.”
Air Force personnel also “did not properly monitor and approve contractor payments,” allowing contractors to “improperly” bill and be paid $6.7 million for unauthorized materials, the audit said.
Brigadier General Danny Gardner, the Air Force director of installations in Europe, said in a prepared statement that “an incomplete and faulty technical design plagued this project from the outset.”
The problems “are beyond the Air Force’s ability to fix unilaterally” and the “way ahead lies mainly with the German government,” it said.
The Air Force has tried to persuade the German government to accept responsibility for the project’s current state and provide funds to keep it progressing, Gardner said in the statement.
