Wackenhut Again, I Say unto Thee

Dear Lord,

I bet you get tired of hearing complaints day in, day out, era after era, planet after planet. I know I'm tired! If I hear one more yapper mouth on about pennies here, pennies there, yadda yadda from, for example, the decommissioning fund, I think I'm going to blow my lid -- and let me tell you, Lord, if I blow my lid I can take an awful lot of people out with me! (So can anyone here, natch.)

Anyway, they're squabbling down in Florida about money and I'm hoping against hope that this particular fight doesn't make its way north, for it concerns Wackenhut, our security firm. News of that squabble reaching Vermont would definitely not be good, considering that we just got slapped with a significant security violation from the NRC, possibly during a "force on force" test.

Apparently, in Florida, Wackenhut has been guarding the Metrorail and the Juvenile Assessment Center in Miami Dade County. An audit found that Wackenhut may have overbilled the county by millions of dollars.

According to the web site of CBS4, "After a three year investigation, County spokeswoman Vicki Mallette said an audit found the Wackenhut Corp. overbilled the county more than $2 million a year for work that security guards never performed. 'We are prepared to cancel all contracts with the Wackenhut Corporation and demand all the money that is owed to us,' County Mayor Carlos Alvarez said."

But there's more to the story than just that: CBS4 also reported that, "'Based on our look at the Metrorail and the Juvenile Assessment Center together, we believe that the total figure is about $4 million a year, times seven years, or $28 million,' said Mark Veith. Veith is the lawyer representing the insiders at Wackenhut who acted as whistleblowers in the case. He also believes security was compromised in certain places because of this."

Dear God, please make sure that no public audit will ever be performed of Wackenhut's charges to Entergy Vermont Yankee (and of the effect of any over-billing, should it occur, on the price of electricity). Also, please help us avoid any thorough public audit of the quality of the security Wackenhut provides. Also, please continue to keep quiet about what the security problem is at Vermont Yankee, as well as about what level of concern the NRC has about the problem. (All the public knows so far is that the NRC has classified it as "greater than green").

Amen again, I say unto thee,

Fake-Rob