Honestly, I think anyone who was looking at the stimulus programs with an adversarial mindset could have seen this coming. But remember the state of affairs in March 2020... It was a...
Honestly, I think anyone who was looking at the stimulus programs with an adversarial mindset could have seen this coming. But remember the state of affairs in March 2020... It was a once-in-a-hundred-years global emergency, and even if 10% of the money went to fraud, 90% of it went to its intended destination. A certain amount of shrinkage was probably designed into the looseness of the lending requirements.
What surprises me is that they didn't allocate more resources to investigating the fraud they knew would happen after the fact. But I suppose that's a bit too pragmatic to sign into law in a country where a significant number of voters decry anything approaching aid or handouts.
It'll be interesting to see, ultimately, how many people or organizations get away with it. Probably most of them.
An Associated Press analysis found that fraudsters potentially stole more than $280 billion in COVID-19 relief funding; another $123 billion was wasted or misspent. Combined, the loss represents 10% of the $4.2 trillion the U.S. government has so far disbursed in COVID relief aid.
That number is certain to grow as investigators dig deeper into thousands of potential schemes.
How could so much be stolen? Investigators and outside experts say the government, in seeking to quickly spend trillions in relief aid, conducted too little oversight during the pandemic’s early stages and instituted too few restrictions on applicants. In short, they say, the grift was just way too easy.
Same in the UK The Job Retention (furlough) scheme was too generous for too few people. Millions fell through the cracks and further in to poverty, millions more worked endless hours to keep...
Same in the UK
The Job Retention (furlough) scheme was too generous for too few people. Millions fell through the cracks and further in to poverty, millions more worked endless hours to keep essential services running, while about a third of the population had a 2-year paid holiday. Employers and claimants who abused the system are getting away with it.
Untold billions was given to friends of the Tory party for PPE that was incorrect, late, couldn't be used, or didn't exist, supplied by companies specialising in party planning or marketing. Often the companies were new, with no trading history, and had bypassed the legal public procurement routes & just been awarded contracts with no tender & no competition. A small number of high profile cases are in the judicial system, but largely the money is gone and no one is accountable.
Government-backed and guaranteed business loans were handed out like sweeties to everyone and anyone who applied, with only a superficial pretence at due diligence. Companies took loans then immediately 'phoenixed' or just closed down. Serial fraudsters found you could easily bypass the rules on loans only being awarded to companies with trading history, so repeatedly opened new companies with fake details. Billions will never be recovered.
The political fall out from fraud in particular is disappointingly absent. Parroting the line "bUt wE gOt tHe bIg cAlLs rIgHt" to highlight the UK's early vaccine rollout seems to have cut through, despite all the other elements of the pandemic response being seriously wanting.
Honestly, I think anyone who was looking at the stimulus programs with an adversarial mindset could have seen this coming. But remember the state of affairs in March 2020... It was a once-in-a-hundred-years global emergency, and even if 10% of the money went to fraud, 90% of it went to its intended destination. A certain amount of shrinkage was probably designed into the looseness of the lending requirements.
What surprises me is that they didn't allocate more resources to investigating the fraud they knew would happen after the fact. But I suppose that's a bit too pragmatic to sign into law in a country where a significant number of voters decry anything approaching aid or handouts.
It'll be interesting to see, ultimately, how many people or organizations get away with it. Probably most of them.
Same in the UK
The Job Retention (furlough) scheme was too generous for too few people. Millions fell through the cracks and further in to poverty, millions more worked endless hours to keep essential services running, while about a third of the population had a 2-year paid holiday. Employers and claimants who abused the system are getting away with it.
Untold billions was given to friends of the Tory party for PPE that was incorrect, late, couldn't be used, or didn't exist, supplied by companies specialising in party planning or marketing. Often the companies were new, with no trading history, and had bypassed the legal public procurement routes & just been awarded contracts with no tender & no competition. A small number of high profile cases are in the judicial system, but largely the money is gone and no one is accountable.
Government-backed and guaranteed business loans were handed out like sweeties to everyone and anyone who applied, with only a superficial pretence at due diligence. Companies took loans then immediately 'phoenixed' or just closed down. Serial fraudsters found you could easily bypass the rules on loans only being awarded to companies with trading history, so repeatedly opened new companies with fake details. Billions will never be recovered.
The political fall out from fraud in particular is disappointingly absent. Parroting the line "bUt wE gOt tHe bIg cAlLs rIgHt" to highlight the UK's early vaccine rollout seems to have cut through, despite all the other elements of the pandemic response being seriously wanting.