During a House Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee hearing in July, Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) spoke about cuts to the Small Business Administration's Office of Inspector General's staff.
00:00Any other members who wish to be recognized for a statement on the bill?
00:04Seeing none, I would like to now recognize the ranking member to speak on the bill.
00:07Thank you, Madam Chair, and I would like to lend my support to the legislation sponsored by Mr. Downing and Dr. Conaway.
00:16I commend both of you for working together to extend the statute of limitations from five years to ten years for the additional COVID programs.
00:26This bill is a good complement to the one former ranking member Luke Meyer and myself enacted into law for the PPP and EIDL.
00:36During the pandemic, the SBA executed 14 years of lending in 14 days to help keep small businesses stay afloat.
00:46This program helped millions of small businesses across the country.
00:50Unsurprisingly, there was fraud committed by bad actors looking to take advantage of our work to assist entrepreneurs in their time of need.
01:00While we may never know the full extent of that fraud, we do know for certain that the majority of that fraud took place in the first nine months of the pandemic.
01:11To combat fraud, the previous administration reinstated the internal controls in the PPP and EIDL programs and put strong upfront controls in place for the RRF and SVOG programs.
01:29And for the most part, it worked.
01:31Today, the Office of Inspector General's work has resulted in charges against 25 individuals, 14 criminal convictions, and more than $61 million in recovery.
01:46The OIG has 31 open RF cases and six open SVOG cases.
01:53While these numbers may seem modest, each case is complex, involving layered transactions, fault documentations, and financial concealment.
02:05These cases take time to investigate and prosecute, and we owe it to the experts doing the work to give them the tools they need.
02:15But I will be remiss if I didn't mention that extending the statute of limitation is only part of the equation.
02:22We also need to provide full funding so that they have the resources to rule out fraud.
02:29And we cannot talk about fraud and then look the other way while the administrator cuts the agency staff by 43 percent.
02:39More than 100 employees were reviewing these cases, awards, to ensure the money were used in accordance with the terms of the grant.
02:48And despite multiple requests for information about staff cuts, we do not know whether SBA retained these employees.
02:59Without sufficient funds dedicated to oversight and investigative staff, SBA and the OIG may not be able to fully recover the monies.
03:09In closing, I commend Mr. Dunning and Mr. Conaway for leading this effort and support the bill.
03:15MR.
03:15I yield back.
03:16MR.
03:16I yield back.
03:17MR.
03:17I yield back.
03:22MR.
03:23I yield back.
03:25US.
03:25MAG咀嚐.
03:25I yield back.
03:27And in closing, I yield back.
03:27amount of applause in and supporting your Chennai.
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