A House government oversight committee is requesting the Air Force turn over documents related to a U.S. government weapons sale to Kenya pushed through on President Obama’s last day in office.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday will request the Air Force produce documents related to the $418 million sale to Kenya for twelve weaponized crop duster-like planes to conduct border control against terrorists, according to a letter obtained by Breitbart News.
The U.S. government awarded the contract to produce the planes to L-3, which some lawmakers question. Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) said a veteran-owned small business named IOMAX has experience in producing the planes for hundreds of millions cheaper, but was not given a chance to compete for the contract.
He suspects the contract was awarded unfairly by U.S. Air Force acquisition officials and applauded the committee’s action.
“The fundamentals of this case remain the same. A secretive acquisition unit of the Air Force, known as Big Safari, continues to purchase light attack aircraft from a company that has no track record of making this type of plane. In the process, they’ve passed over a company in our state that has 48 of these planes currently in combat service in the Middle East. As a result, taxpayers and American allies have been overcharged by millions,” he said.
“When I tried to find out why, they told me the documents were ‘for official use only,’ or ‘sensitive, but unclassified.’ The Air Force has the legal capability to frustrate my inquiry, but they can’t stonewall the Oversight Committee. We’ll soon find out if this flawed sale is the result of incompetence, or if there is something more serious going on. I want to thank Chairman Chaffetz for pursuing this matter. This is the next step on a long road to finding out what actually happened with the Kenya deal, and what’s going on at Big Safari,” he added.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.