Federal investigators say the Federal Emergency Management Agency gave nearly $20 million in duplicate payments to over 7,000 people who claimed damages to the same property from both Katrina and Rita -- hurricanes that struck the Gulf Coast only 26 days apart.
FEMA also paid at least $3 million to more than 500 students at four Gulf Coast universities who were not eligible because they were not U.S. citizens.
And, investigators say, the Department of Homeland Security "overstated" the number of missing gear it had recovered in a message to Congress last summer. Many of the items -- laptop computers and printers -- are still missing, investigators say.
These disclosures and others are included in testimony prepared by the Government Accountability Office for a Senate hearing Wednesday on fraud and abuse in the wake of Hurricane Katrina."
After reading this, I came to a conclusion that none of this matters. So what if some folks got their apartments paid for by the government even though they paid no actual rent. So what that people claimed damage on the same property from both hurricanes. Both hurricanes hit the same locations right? Being a victim in this disaster and receiving the sad compensation from FEMA for an egregious amount of loss, I can say good things about those that might've lucked out or played the system well enough to get more. If FEMA needs to clean up inefficiencies, it's in getting this money out, not necessarily paying out too much.
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