Tribe-owned company's USAID contracts among those axed by DOGE
Mashantucket — Two contracts a Mashantucket Pequot-owned company had with the U.S. Agency for International Development are among the thousands of government contracts the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has terminated.
The contracts, which had been held by CeLeen LLC, an information technology company, totaled $106.7 million. They were canceled last month.
'We did have contracts terminated 'for convenience' — the government's convenience,' said Jon Panamaroff, chief executive officer of Command Holdings, the tribal holding company that acquired CeLeen in 2021. 'We're trying to be tight-lipped about this,' he said, declining to discuss details of the contracts or DOGE.
'Contracts come, contracts go,' Panamaroff said. 'We had diversified well in both the commercial and private sectors. We have other contracts ... and we want to do more business with the government.'
CeLeen offers a variety of IT and professional services.
One of the canceled contracts had a total value of $82.4 million and was for 'institutional support services for USAID/OTI operations and programs.' OTI refers to USAID's Office of Transition Initiative, which 'focuses on supporting political transitions and stabilization efforts in response to political crises,' according to a description on the website HigherGov.com, which tracks the government contracting and grant markets.
CeLeen's other canceled contract, with a total value of about $24.3 million, was for 'administrative and technical support for DRG (democracy, human rights and governance) offices and projects.'
The Mashantuckets, owners of Foxwoods Resort Casino, launched Command Holdings amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused the casino to close for 11 weeks in 2020 and focused the tribe's attention on its need to diversify.
'We're here to build a network of companies involved in federal and private, commercial contracting,' Panamaroff said at the time. 'The federal government sends out billions of dollars worth of business to companies, and tribes have the ability to participate in that marketplace.'
Command Holdings also acquired Washington, D.C.-based Quattro Publishing in 2021 and the next year added WWC Global, a woman-owned consulting firm. WWC's clients included the Departments of Defense, State and Homeland Security as well as USAID. Command also owns Copperhead Technologies, a computer programming and systems design company.
On Friday, DOGE's website said the agency has so far terminated 5,634 contracts, generating about $20 billion in savings.
b.hallenbeck@theday.com
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