Objective
Our objective was to inspect U.S. military-occupied facilities at Camp Buehring, Kuwait, to verify compliance with DoD health and safety policies and standards regarding electrical and fire protection systems.
Findings
We found significant deficiencies in electrical and fire protection systems during the physical inspections of the U.S. military-occupied facilities at Camp Buehring. We identified a total of 538 deficiencies that could affect the health, safety, and well-being of warfighters: 198 related to electrical systems and 340 related t o f ire protection systems. The majority of those deficiencies resulted from insufficient inspection, inadequate maintenance, lack of an effective maintenance and inspection plan, and ineffective project oversight.
In addition, Camp Buehring did not have any permanent, Government-employed master electricians or fire protection engineers. The maintenance contract does not require that the contractor perform electrical maintenance to any specific standard. Also, the contract inspection, testing, and maintenance requirements for fire alarm and fire protection systems do not reference the appropriate Unified Facilities Criteria.
Recommendations
We recommend that the Commander, U.S. Army Central (USARCENT), initiate the following remedies:
Conduct a root cause analysis and implement a corrective action plan for all 538 deficiencies identified in this report.
Create and execute a plan for ongoing inspection and maintenance of all U.S. military-occupied facilities at Camp Buehring and other locations where the Commander, Area Support Group Kuwait (ASG‑KU), provides base operations support and inspections. Ensure that the buildings and the maintenance of these locations comply with applicable electrical and fire protection safety codes and standards.
Revise the Kuwait Base Operations and Security Support Services (K-BOSSS) contract W52P1J-10-C-0062 Performance Work Statement (PWS) to ensure that electrical and fire protection systems comply with appropriate codes or standards.
Provide staff from contracting officer’s representative (COR) office with the technical assistance of a master electrician and a fire protection engineer at Camp Buehring to evaluate and inspect contractor performance (as required by the revised contract). The evaluation and inspection should ensure that all military housing and other structures comply with applicable electrical and fire protection codes.
Management Comments and Our Response
The Assistant Chief of Staff, Engineers, responding for U SARCENT, agreed with all our findings and recommendations. He also provided a status of the deficiencies that had been corrected in the 5 months after the inspection, and indicated that corrective action will continue. However, while he agreed with the recommendations to revise the contract PWS to ensure that the contractor maintains the electrical, and fire protection systems to the appropriate codes, and criteria, he did not provide any details on how or when this would be accomplished. Therefore, we request that USARCENT provide details on the implementation of these recommendations including an expected completion date.