Hope Yen of the AP is reporting:
Federal investigators have already determined the Bush administration squandered $1 billion on fraudulent disaster aid to individuals after the 2005 storm. Now they are shifting their attention to the multimillion dollar contracts to politically connected firms that critics have long said are a prime area for abuse.Government officals (past and present) are now alleging that the dollar amount wasted could exceed $2 billion.
In January, investigators will release the first of several audits examining more than $12 billion in Katrina contracts. The charges range from political favoritism to limited opportunities for small and minority-owned firms, which initially got only 1.5 percent of the total work.
AP story (courtesy of the Washington Post), here.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out and what evidence is brought to light as a result of this.
The sad truth is that there are still a lot of people suffering as a result of this disaster. And it doesn't make sense that they should be when this kind of money was available.
Here is a post, I wrote about the results of a recent GAO (Government Accountability Office) audit:
Will We Ever Discover the True Losses in the Katrina Disaster?
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