Government auditors say that FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) paid $31 million in disaster relief for Hurricane Frances, to 12,000 Florida residents who did not deserve the payments.
"FEMA did not adequately inspect homes and used a system of aid payments susceptible to potential fraud, waste and abuse".
What do you expect??
Hurricane Frances, coming 22 days after Hurricane Charley (which killed 27 and damaged 40,000 buildings) was the 4th costliest Hurricane in U.S. history, behind Andrew '92, and Charley and Ivan of 2004.
FEMA had to hire and quickly train 2,000 extra inspectors, who, needless to say, were probably still not very well qualified.
FEMA is charged with going into an emergency situation, (people with no shelter, food, water, clothing, electricity) and getting those people aid as quickly as possible.
Sure there are going to be some bogus claims. Hell, if they had to verify each and every one we'd still be down there verifying from Andrew in '92.
So what do you want??
If FEMA starts doing more inspections and verifying prior to giving aid, they will be criticized for taking too long in getting aid to the victims.
If FEMA does what they need to do to get the aid out more quickly, it becomes easier to defraud.
It's a no win situation.
Personally I think FEMA did a damn fine job in Florida, with 4 storms in 5 weeks.
The auditors evidently have 12,000 names of bogus claims paid. I suggest they contact these people, make them pay restitution or go to jail.
Then they can worry about other "systems of aid susceptible to fraud, waste and abuse", such as welfare, food stamps, Medicare and Medicaid.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment