USPS awarded $ 120 million contract to company with financial ties to Postmaster General

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The U.S. Postal Service has reached a five-year, $ 120 million deal with XPO Logistics, a leading logistics entrepreneur with financial and personal ties to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, The Washington Post reports.

The contract, which was awarded in April, will allow XPO to oversee operations at two “critical” sorting and distribution facilities in Atlanta and Washington, DC. four office buildings from North Carolina to XPO, according to the To post. These leases could generate “up to $ 23.7 million in rent” over the next ten years. The Postmaster General was also general manager of the XPO supply chain from 2014 to 2015, and has sold between “65.4 million dollars and 155.3 million dollars of XPO shares” since taking office. .

“There is no doubt that he continues to take advantage of a postal service contractor,” said Virginia Canter, chief ethics counselor at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Even if DeJoy complies with legal requirements, Canter added “this creates an apparent problem as to whether it is in his financial best interests to continue to develop a policy that would benefit entrepreneurs like XPO.”

XPO’s North Carolina leases were approved by ethics officials ahead of DeJoy’s inauguration, and a Postal Service spokesperson said he was “challenged” from an XPO case, reports the To post. While some “ethics watchdogs” are concerned about its links, others, such as Postal Service blogger Steve Hutkins, see DeJoy’s logistics experience as conducive to outsourcing, considering it to be an outsourcing experience. ‘He was one of them’.

On the other hand, Dena Briscoe, president of the Washington and Southern Maryland branch of the American Postal Workers Union, lamented the XPO contract as a “slap in the face” for union members. “A lot of our members take offense at this,” she said.

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