WASHINGTON-UNS: Over $200 billion from the US government’s Covid-19 relief programmes were potentially stolen, a federal watchdog said on Tuesday, adding that the US Small Business Administration (SBA) had weakened its controls in a rush to disburse the funds.
At least 17 per cent of all funds related to the government’s coronavirus Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Programme (PPP) schemes were disbursed to potentially fraudulent actors, according to a report released Tuesday by the SBA’s office of inspector general.
Over the course of the pandemic, the SBA disbursed about $1.2 trillion of EIDL and PPP funds.
The SBA disputed the more than $200bn figure put forward by the watchdog and said the inspector general’s approach had significantly overestimated fraud.-Reuters
