WASHINGTON: The US Small Business Administration’s internal watchdog has launched an inquiry into a technical glitch that led many small businesses to receive duplicate loans through a high-profile federal coronavirus aid programme.
A spokesman for the SBA Office of the Inspector-General confirmed that the office has begun a review of the issue, which may have led to hundreds of millions of dollars in duplicate loans being approved under the US$660 bil (RM2.819 tril) Paycheque Protection Programme (PPP).
The review comes after US Representative James Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat who is chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, pressed the SBA watchdog in a letter to investigate the issue.
The duplicate loan issue may have created “significant opportunities” for fraud and potentially wasted more than US$100 mil in taxpayer dollars, Clyburn said in the June 23 letter addressed to SBA Inspector-General Hannibal “Mike” Ware. He said it was “critical” to probe the issue as soon as possible.
Representatives of the SBA did not respond immediately to a request for comment on Tuesday.
The SBA launched the programme on April 3 to help keep workers at struggling businesses employed. In the race to get funds out the door, the programme encountered paperwork, technology and fairness issues.
In the case of the duplicate loan approvals, a blind spot in SBA’s loan processing system failed to catch when some borrowers submitted applications multiple times, typically through different lenders.
Lenders are still grappling with unwinding duplicate loans across several banks and retrieving the cash where those loans have been deposited, according to one person with direct knowledge of the matter.
The government has said it will only guarantee one loan per borrower, which means lenders, rather than the taxpayer, are likely to be on the hook for the error. – July 15, 2020, Reuters
