Report to Congress: April 1 through September 30, 2021
We're pleased to present the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee's (PRAC) Semiannual Report to Congress, which summarizes our accomplishments between April 1, 2021, and September 30, 2021. The PRAC and its 22 Inspectors General are committed to our extraordinary responsibility. We’re overseeing $5 trillion that’s funded more than 375 programs to help respond to the pandemic.
We continue to look for fraud, waste, and abuse, but also work to ensure the relief – like unemployment benefits or disaster relief loans − reaches those individuals and businesses it was intended to help.
"Just one pandemic relief program—the $800 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)—is equal to the federal government’s entire response to the 2008-2009 financial crisis."
Michael E. Horowitz, PRAC Chair
We made it easier to track $5 trillion
We recently redesigned our website and built new interactive tools so that information is accessible and easy to understand. We created a new feature that breaks down data in short and simple stories. We’ve shared stories that define unfamiliar terms—like “prime recipient”—to the public and show how much states spent in emergency rental assistance or how many businesses had PPP loans forgiven. It’s part of our commitment to educating the public so they can follow how their tax dollars are spent. We issued a lessons learned report that summarized the work done across the pandemic oversight community so that policymakers are made aware of opportunities to improve the response to the pandemic.
We also began co-sponsoring a virtual event series with the National Academy for Public Administration. It features experts from academia, think tanks, and non-profits that discuss the impact of pandemic relief, like rental assistance, in underserved communities.
See all our transparency and data accomplishments in the full report (pdf).
We set the PACE in the fight against fraud
With the funding Congress provided in the American Rescue Plan Act, we launched the Pandemic Analytics Center of Excellence (the PACE) to deliver analytic, audit, and investigative support to the oversight community. We’ve acquired dozens of public and non-public federal datasets and shared them with 29 IGs to help investigators find fraud across relief programs. We’ve brought in the best and brightest data science talent and have trained and placed 15 data science fellows with our members to help analyze pandemic relief data.
We’ve got a Task Force with 34 agents investigating fraud
Our Fraud Task Force serves as a resource for the IG community by surging investigative resources into areas with the greatest need: pandemic loan fraud. We have 34 agents from nine OIGs working cases that would otherwise go unaddressed due to the scale of the fraud we are seeing. The idea behind our Task Force is to harness the expertise of the oversight community and attack fraud with every tool we have: criminal, civil, forfeitures of money and property, suspension and debarments.
The PRAC also works with our partners to identify emerging fraud risks created by the pandemic. During the reporting period, we partnered with the Housing & Urban Development (HUD) OIG to help protect more than $9 billion that went to the Community Development Block Grant and Emergency Solutions Grant programs.
Read more about our efforts to fight fraud and waste in the full report (pdf).
We are building a diverse and innovative team
We hired 33 new employees, including a human resources specialist to streamline our administrative functions and an information technology support specialist to ensure the PRAC maximizes the technological advantages of a remote workforce.
We also opened a safe and modest office in Washington, DC that enables employees to collaborate when necessary.
Learn more about how we improved our organization in the full report.
