Top House Republican slams Small Business Administration after IG admits twice as much COVID loan fraud; Over $200bn in Covid-19 small business loans stolen: US govt. watchdog, and other C-Virus related stories
Top House Republican slams Small Business Administration after IG admits twice as much COVID loan fraud:
The Small Business Administration Office of the Inspector General said that 4.5 million potentially fraudulent loans and grants were disbursed
The Republican chairman of the House Committee on Small Business is accusing the Small Business Administration (SBA) of failing to protect coronavirus loan programs from fraud after a government report found that the agency disbursed over $200 billion in possibly fraudulent COVID-19 loans, nearly double that which was previously expected.
The Small Business Administration Office of the Inspector General said in its report on COVID-19 pandemic loan fraud on Tuesday that the agency disbursed more than $200 billion in potentially fraudulent PPP loans and Economic Injury Disaster Loans during the pandemic.
In total, the SBA’s Office of the Inspector General said there were 4.5 million potentially fraudulent loans and grants from pandemic loan programs.
The Office of the Inspector General said the SBA “did not have an established strong internal control environment for approving and disbursing program funds,” adding that “there was an insufficient barrier against fraudsters accessing funds that should have been available for eligible business owners adversely affected by the pandemic.”
Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas., said in a statement to Fox News Digital that the Office of the Inspector General report shows significantly more criminal activity occurred than was previously known.
“These findings show the SBA failed to implement basic guardrails to protect the integrity of these programs, resulting in roughly 1 in 5 loans dispersed being labeled as potentially fraudulent.”
“These findings show the SBA failed to implement basic guardrails to protect the integrity of these programs, resulting in roughly 1 in 5 loans dispersed being labeled as potentially fraudulent. When COVID-19 hit the United States, the SBA was tasked with taking on an oversized role to help save small businesses and our nation’s job creators. Unfortunately, these after-action reports show the agency was not up to the task. I look forward to hearing directly from Inspector General Ware in July on what went wrong, how to fix these issues, and what recourse we must take to recoup these stolen taxpayer dollars,” Williams said. —>READ MORE HERE
Over $200bn in Covid-19 small business loans stolen: US govt. watchdog:
The United States lost more than $200 billion to fraud from two schemes designed to help small businesses through the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a US government watchdog report.
“We identified multiple schemes used by fraudsters to steal from the American taxpayer and exploit programs meant to help those in need,” the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) said in a new report.
The potentially fraudulent loans were disbursed through two Covid-19 programs, the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), according to the report published on Tuesday.
“Over $200 billion in potentially fraudulent Covid-19 EIDLs, EIDL Targeted Advances, Supplemental Targeted Advances, and PPP loans,” the SBA report said.
“This means at least 17 percent of all COVID-19 EIDL and PPP funds were disbursed to potentially fraudulent actors,” according to the SBA.
The US government provided around $4.6 trillion of funding for pandemic response and recovery, according to a recent estimate by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO). —>READ MORE HERE
Follow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
SBA watchdog estimates over $200 billion of COVID relief fraud, but official claims ‘serious flaws that significantly overestimate’ damage
The Great Grift: More than $200 billion in COVID-19 aid may have been stolen, federal watchdog says
USA TODAY: Coronavirus Updates
YAHOO NEWS: Coronavirus Live Updates
NEW YORK POST: Coronavirus The Latest
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