VALDOSTA — U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss urged Air Force officials Thursday to resolve the privatized housing situation at Moody Air Force Base, and called for an investigation into how the contracts were awarded in the first place.

Carabetta Construction dba Moody Family Housing received more than $3 billion in contracts to construct privatized housing units for military personnel at bases in five states. Work on all of the bases has come to a halt, with work stopping at Moody in March following months of unpaid work by subcontractors, hired by general contractor SRC Construction (SRC is Salvatore Carabetta’s initials), and the issue is in litigation, with a ruling expected this week on the issue of appointing a receiver for the project. Only two of the more than 200 planned homes were completed on a project awarded more than four years ago.

Moody AFB is in Chambliss’ district, and the senator was questioned about the housing issue on a recent visit to the city by the Times. He kept his word and, after looking more closely into the issue, spoke about it in an interview Thursday.

“I am very concerned about this, really concerned about this. It’s not a new found concern, as I sent a letter back in March about the issue, got a response in April, and have continued to monitor it,” he said.

Chambliss said he wrote a second letter to the Air Force, and received a response two weeks ago, but it wasn’t the response he was looking for.

“Frankly, the Air Force has tap danced around the issue, and I had a very serious conversation with the Secretary of the Air Force today, following the (Senate) Floor statement yesterday. I believe they’ve been fairly lax in addressing the issue, and they’re not being sensitive to figure out how to move forward. We have 1,000 families coming in the next 18 months, and they’re addressing it in a way that’s not satisfactory.”

Chambliss said Secretary of the Air Force, Michael Wynne, “knows how upset I am about this. He said they are going to come forward with a plan to address it and move forward, and we are finally seeing some movement by the Air Force.”

The senator also stated it might be time for an Inspector General investigation. “It doesn’t solve the problem, but we want to make sure the housing is available and the mess is cleaned up. There may possibly be a hearing. We want to get to the bottom of this.”

Chambliss spoke about the work stoppage on the floor of the Senate Wednesday evening, saying he is disappointed with the responses he has received thus far from the Air Force to inquiries regarding the delay, and with Sec. Wynne on Thursday morning.

“After four years on this contract and millions of dollars spent, exactly two houses have been built,” Chambliss said. “This is unacceptable. This delay will hinder the base’s ability to meet the needs of some 1,000 new personnel expected to arrive in 2009. This is an Air Force contract. Air Force personnel are suffering because of the poor performance of the contractor, and the Air Force’s response to my request for an intended plan of action has been insufficient. I am pleased that Sec. Wynne acknowledged that the Air Force should have handled this situation more effectively, and I will work closely with him to ensure it is resolved expeditiously.”

In response to Chambliss’ inquiries, the Air Force has said that because it has no legal agreements with the contractor, issues of non-payment between the contractor and sub-contractors must be resolved through the legal system. During his remarks on the Senate floor, Chambliss disagreed and said the Air Force must respond to the following unanswered questions:

1) What were the factors contributing to the decision to award this contract given previous known defaults and bankruptcy declarations?

2) Is the Air Force currently taking steps to terminate this contract? If so, what steps are they taking? If not, why not?

3) What is the plan for housing the incoming Air Force personnel slated to live in the new quarters which have yet to be built?

“The Air Force should have been more proactive to fix this problem before it got to this point,” Chambliss said. “In my opinion, this issue is ripe for an Inspector General investigation to figure out what went wrong, why the contractor was awarded a $3.3 billion contract for privatized housing, covering five states, work on all of which has been halted.”

The estimated cost of the project has exceeded available funding by $25 million, and the project lenders stopped funding in March 2007 to prevent all funds from being expended.