Making sense of $5,000,000,000,000

Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency sent this bulletin at 11/08/2021 02:35 PM EST

Pandemic Response Accountability Committee

New from the PRAC

Dead ends in pandemic data

We recently released a report detailing the problem with gaps in pandemic award data. $33 billion worth of awards are difficult to track because recipients included meaningless descriptions, making it hard for us to know where the money went.

Read the report here

We’re giving you bite-sized data updates

We've got a lot of data to share, and to make it as easy as possible we’re breaking off bite-sized pieces in our new Data Stories. You can learn how much funding state and local governments have received, what unemployment programs were created in the CARES Act, what the term prime recipient means, and more.

We spoke with the Congressional Transparency Caucus about our oversight of $5 trillion

On October 20, PRAC Chair Michael Horowitz joined other oversight experts on a panel hosted by the Transparency Caucus to explain how we’re tracking $5 trillion – what it takes, what’s needed to strengthen transparency, and how to share data among agencies.

Learn more about the event here

In the news

Federal Computer Week, Federal watchdog calls out transparency issues in pandemic spending

“Agencies were inconsistent in their reporting on how COVID-related funds were awarded to prime recipients and subrecipients, and provided unclear project descriptions on PandemicOversight.gov, a public website maintained by PRAC. The CARES Act requires agencies to report COVID-spending for awards over $150,000 on the PRAC website.”

Forbes, Americans love meat so much that butchers, processing plants and farms received $84 million in pandemic aid

“The grants were allocated from the $150 billion in total CRF money given to states and large localities in the spring of 2020 from the CARES Act. While the federal legislation included billions in additional funds for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to supports food assistance, farmers and ranchers, much of that went to help farms cover their losses, not to address the overarching problem.”

The Daily Scoop Podcast, How is the Pandemic Analytics Center of Excellence analyzing risks to fight fraud, waste and abuse of COVID relief funds

Listen to PRAC Chair Michael Horowitz discuss the Pandemic Analytics Center of Excellence (PACE) and how data sharing is changing how we oversee pandemic programs.

In case you missed it

A Miami man stole over 100 identities and used them to spend more than $650,000 by opening retail credit card accounts while people were in pandemic lockdown. He even lied about his name and identity to federal agents and the court when he was caught.

A former public official in Hawaii moved AmeriCorps pandemic relief funds to his own companies without disclosing that they were his own companies. He then spent the embezzled funds on personal expenses, including approximately $20,000 of elective aesthetic dental care.

A Georgia man scammed $85,000 in pandemic relief from the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program and allegedly used $57,787 of it to buy a single Pokémon card. He faces 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines.

Activities by our partners

HUD OIG and the PRAC created a fraud risk inventory to assess vulnerabilities in HUD programs

The fraud risk map has identified 31 different fraud schemes that can be used to misappropriate funds in the Community Development Block Grant and Emergency Solutions Grant programs.

SBA OIG finds $4.5 billion in misappropriated EIDL funds

The Economic Injury Disaster Loan program created in the CARES Act has been defrauded of approximately $4.5 billion in grants to sole proprietors and independent contractors, according to a recent SBA OIG report.

Join our team!

We're hiring for the following positions:

Contract Specialist/Officer | Pandemic Oversight

Public Affairs Specialist | Pandemic Oversight

Looking forward to hearing from you!

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The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) is a committee of the
Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE).

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