A giant bonfire of taxpayers’ money’: fraud and the UK pandemic loan scheme

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Once the data starts to come out, this will be the end of Rishi hopes of being PM. He dropped the ball on this. He panicked.

https://www.ft.com/content/41d5fe0a-7b46-4dd7-96e3-710977dff81c

The bounce back plan offered a lifeline to struggling companies. But more than half the £43bn lent so far could be lost

Mr Bogan was the target of fraudsters seeking to exploit weaknesses in the UK government's £43.5bn coronavirus Bounce Back Loans Scheme. Launched by chancellor Rishi Sunak in May, it was designed to provide cash quickly for struggling businesses, but its loose rules were immediately exposed with some estimates suggesting as much as £26bn will be lost to defaults and fraud. The Financial Times has spoken to more than a dozen senior bankers, fraud experts and people involved in the creation and running of the programme. In the words of one, “the scheme was being abused and defrauded on an industrial scale”.

“The period from April to June was essentially a giant bonfire of taxpayers' money,” says one senior banker, “with banks just handing out matches”.

The government itself had estimated losses from the scheme could be between a third and 75 per cent due to the parlous nature of many businesses going into the crisis. The threat of such huge losses required a ministerial direction — in effect an order by Alok Sharma, the business secretary — to overrule concerns.

At the end of November, the OBR increased its estimates of overall losses to as much as £29bn, the vast majority related to bounce back loans. In the best-case scenario, total losses from all the loan schemes could add up to £22bn; in the worst, taxpayers would foot a £40bn bill — almost half of all government lending to business during the crisis. On Thursday, the chancellor extended the scheme for a second time, to the end of March.
 
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Who cares weirdo, what country do you live in. You’ve been eating to many bats.
 
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Foreign fraudsters ;)

Fraud dare say the French are involved ;)

Dare say sir gal. Had his snout in the trough;)


We got 12 grand :cool:
 
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