This week has been extremely busy with the President’s State of the Union Address and our very first House Veteran’s Affairs full Committee hearing this year.  Congresswoman Aumua Amata attended both events.  

The House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs held a hearing on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2015 to examine the longstanding legacy of mismanagement and waste of VA’s construction program.  The purpose of this hearing was to address the continued mismanagement, delays and cost overruns associated with major VA construction projects across the country.

The hearing focused largely on construction of the replacement Aurora, Colorado, VA Medical Center, where the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals recently found VA in breach of contract with its prime contracting vendor, creating a work stoppage on the project. 

The Committee also focused on examining steps VA is taking to stop its construction program’s legacy of mismanagement and waste and determine who – if anyone – has been held accountable for the department’s string of major construction failures across the country. 

The original cost of the Aurora project was $328 million, but the budget has ballooned to $800 million in recent years. VA has spent nearly all of the money allotted for construction, which was supposed to have been completed in February of 2014, yet the project is only half complete.

Congresswoman Aumua Amata, as a member of this committee, opened up with a statement to let the committee know how important her island home of American Samoa is to our Nation; proudly letting them know that our top exports to the U.S. are canned tuna, football players and Soldiers.  Because American Samoa has such a high percentage of our population serving or have served in the Armed Forces, solving our Veterans’ issues are very important to her.

Following her introduction, she asked the VA Secretary, Hon. Gibson and his staff how long will it take them to get a long term contract with the current contractor KT, and to please explain the process to get to that point.  The Secretary was a little taken aback and needed help from his staff to answer this question.  She then followed with another one.  She asked, “If you plan on moving money from other major construction projects that Congress has appropriated money to build, what is stopping those projects from being mired down by the same cost overruns and delays that current VA construction projects are facing?”  

These questions clearly put the VA on notice that this new member of Congress understands the issues, will not let up and will continue to dig into the details of their mismanagement to ensure they are held accountable and our tax dollars are not wasted.

HCVA Hearing Clip: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0TbAWkPqkocVk1rclhWTGc0djA/view?usp=sh...