SBA Released Hundreds of Billions in Covid Relief Before Establishing Fraud Prevention, Watchdog Finds

The Small Business Administration failed to implement fraud detection measures until after it had distributed hundreds of billions of dollars in Covid relief and, once the agency did start flagging fraud, most of its fraud referrals lacked the necessary information for further action, according to an explosive government watchdog report.

The Government Accountability Office, (GAO) an independent agency that audits the federal government, released a report earlier this week detailing the gaps in the SBA’s fraud detection process for its two major Covid-19 loan initiatives, the Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program.