Parliament’s spending watchdog condemned “unacceptable” financial losses due to scams and errors
At least £15 billion ($20.39 billion) of taxpayers’ money has been lost through fraud and error in the government’s Covid emergency loan schemes, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) claimed in a report published on Wednesday.
It is time to condemn the situation “unacceptable,”According to the committee, fraud was caused by mistakes and waste “will all end up robbing current and future taxpayers of billions of pounds”Because of this, “weakness” in the government’s systems.
“The estimated loss to fraud and error across all Covid-19 response measures is not known but is expected to be at least £15 billion across the scheme and loans implemented,” the committee’s report outlined. The Covid job retention scheme alone was estimated to have lost £5.3 billion ($7.21 billion) through fraud and error.
Meg Hillier is the Chair of PAC. She stated that they believe the UK will win. “paying the costs of Covid” for “at least the next 20 years,”Appelling for the government’s accountability as to how much was spent to combat the pandemic.
Declaring that the government “must be held accountable”PAC granted the Treasury until the End of 2022 for financial estimates during the outbreak. This included how much it planned to recover and what the losses were due to fraud.
The spokesperson representing the UK Treasury stated that they were responding to the report. “we reject the claims made in the report,”Add that “no fraudulent payments have been written off and the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce is expected to recover up to £1bn from fraudulent or incorrect payments.”
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