Over $200 billion in assistance to COVID-19 may have been stolen

More than $200 billion may have been stolen from two major programs for facilitating the economic situation caused by the spread of COVID-19, the U.S.A.A.A.A. general inspector estimates that he is investigating federal-funded programs that helped small businesses survive the worst public health crisis in more than a hundred years.

The figures released on Tuesday by the US Small Business Administration's general inspector is much higher than previous projections and underscored how vulnerable the frauds were by wage protection and loan programmes during the pandemic, especially during the first stages.

The general inspector's report says that about 17 percent of all funds were disbursed to actors who could have been misled.

According to the report, the assessment of fraud in the economic damage loan program caused by COVID-19 is more than $166 billion, or 33 percent of the total amount spent on that program. The fraud assessment in the wage protection programme totals $64 billion, the general inspector said.

In comments attached to the report, a senior federal agency official for small business rejects new figures.

Bailey DeVries, task manager of the Agency for Capital Access, said: “The general inspector's approach contains serious flaws that significantly overestimate fraud and unwittingly distract the public to think that the work we did together had no significant impact on protection against fraud”.

The general inspector's office had previously estimated that fraud in the programme of the disaster loan caused by COVID-19 was about $88 billion and $20 billion in the salary protection programme.

The news agency “Associated Press” reported on June 13th that frauds stole about $280 billion in emergency aid for COVIED-19, and about $13 billion more were wasted or spent over excess. / VOA