SBA Finds 9/11 Loan Recipients Ineligible

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/29/AR2005122900122_pf.html

Snip: <SBA Finds 9/11 Loan Recipients Ineligible

By LARRY MARGASAK
The Associated Press
Thursday, December 29, 2005; 7:14 AM

WASHINGTON -- In a program to help businesses after Sept. 11, a high percentage of government-backed loans went to recipients who appeared to be unqualified _ some of them unaware they were receiving terrorism-recovery money, investigators report.

The Small Business Administration's inspector general said Wednesday that agency officials were at fault for telling lenders in the program that their determinations would not be questioned.

The inspector general concluded that only nine loan recipients in the 59 cases sampled appeared to be qualified for disaster loans.

Lenders who handed out billions of dollars in loans failed _ 85 percent of the time _ to document that recipients were actually hurt by the terrorism attacks and therefore eligible for the aid under the law, the report found.>

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