A VA hospital construction collapse in Muskogee, Okla., blamed on poor planning and will cost $17.5 million to repair, according to a article on the News OK website.
The VA's Office of Inspector General found the shoddily planned construction of a generator at Muskogee's Jack C. Montgomery VA Medical Center, which has cost $5 million to date, caused the collapse of a hillside and parking lot.
The report, the result of a 27-month investigation, follows a similar report that found two construction projects at the Oklahoma City VA Medical Center are $10.8 million over budget and several years behind schedule due to shoddy contracting and poor oversight, the article said.
VA investigators found failures occurred along the chain of command. The hospital's chief of engineering should have hired an adviser — formally known as a contracting officer's representative, or COR — with excavating experience, the report said. As investigators wrote, “the COR's decisions throughout the project demonstrated his inexperience managing an excavation.”
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