“Current practices invite and enable fraud, harming the very people the program is designed to help,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has said in reference to a report in which GAO identified potentially improper, duplicate, and fraudulent payments through FEMA’s disaster assistance program to ineligible non-US residents, and rental assistance to individuals already living in free housing.
Collins said FEMA has yet to strike a proper balance between expedited assistance and good stewardship of taxpayer funds.
The report found that FEMA also potentially lost tens of millions of dollars through other improper and fraudulent payments through various disaster relief programs, on top of other waste, fraud and abuse identified in earlier reports, and through the 22 previous Katrina-hearings held by the committee.
Just $7 million of $1 billion of estimated potentially fraudulent and improper payments has been recovered, the investigation found.
It also found that FEMA provided potentially improper and or fraudulent rental assistance payments to individuals living in FEMA-funded apartments, and that millions of dollars of improper and potentially fraudulent payments were paid to nonqualified aliens, including foreign students and temporary workers.
>p>Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., who is set to chair the committee in the next Congress, said much work remains to be done to implement reforms called for in recently enacted FEMA legislation.
“Senator Collins and I are committed to being especially vigilant to make certain that they are implemented,” he said.
