Dubai-based firm wins $8 billion contract to supply U.S. forces

Anham, a leading contracting firm based in Dubai, has won the contract to provide full-line food and non-food distribution and support to the U.S. troops in Afghanistan. (Photo courtesy Anham)

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The U.S. military has awarded contracts to a Dubai-based company valued at more than $8 billion to provide food for troops in Afghanistan, according to a newspaper report.

Anham, a leading contracting firm based in Dubai, has won the contract from the United States Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) to provide full-line food and non-food distribution and support to the U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

“Whether it is our support of the U.S. troops and State Department in Iraq, Kuwait and Jordan or the United States Army in Afghanistan, we deliver the best services on time and within budget,” Anham said in a release.

Anham will take over from the longstanding supplier Supreme Foodservice amid an apparent billing dispute the organization had with the Pentagon.

The Wall Street Journal quoted the Pentagon as saying it has spent about $6.8 billion since 2005 on its current food-supply contract with Supreme, a unit of Netherlands-based Supreme Group.

Earlier this year, the DLA, the Pentagon’s logistics arm, began reducing payments to Supreme by $21.7 million a month in order to start recouping what the agency says was $750 million in overpayments, added the paper.

Supreme’s current contract comes to term in December whereas the DLA said Friday it had awarded a contract valued at an estimated $8.1 billion to the new vendor, Anham FZCO, following a month-long competition.

But according to the WSJ, the Pentagon’s logistics arm has also stuck a separate interim deal with Supreme worth an estimated $1.5 billion.

Under terms of the new contract, Supreme will continue deliveries for up to a year while the newcomer will have six months to “ramp up before it starts to gradually take over delivery locations from Supreme”.

U.S. forces are expected to withdraw completely from Afghanistan in 2014, although U.S. officials have discussed the possibility to keep a residual force in the country for few years to conduct counterterrorism and training missions. The withdrawal of U.S. troops is already under way.

Anham is a contracting company created by the principals of the Arab Supply and Trading Company (Astra) of Saudi Arabia, GMS Holdings (a principal founder of Munir Sukhtian International) of Jordan, and HII-Finance Corporation of Vienna, Virginia, U.S.

Source :Al Arabiya