The General Accounting Office is reporting that the Federal Government was defrauded of well over $1 billion of money intended to assist the victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Fraud involving payments supposed to help victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita likely exceeds earlier estimates of $1 billion and only a tiny fraction of the money has been recovered, according to a U.S. government report released on Wednesday.
A February estimate that improper payments could be $1 billion “is likely understated,” the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said in the report to the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
[…]
The GAO cited incidents in which FEMA gave $17 million in housing assistance to individuals who had already obtained free housing in the form of trailers or apartments and $20 million that went to people who improperly claimed for help for both storms that ravaged the U.S. Gulf Coast area.
“FEMA has yet to strike a proper balance between expedited assistance and good stewardship of taxpayer funds,” said Sen. Susan Collins, chairwoman of the committee and a Maine Republican.
One might quibble with the “fraud” language. I suspect a large portion of the housing assitance mentioned in the article was distributed more as a result of confusion than fraud. Still, considering that many Katrina victims are still suffering, the government losing over $1 billion to scam artists is pretty deplorable.
