• Re: Inside Mayor Adams' migrant debit card boondoggle - no-bid bank get

    From Deport !@21:1/5 to All on Tue Feb 20 22:27:47 2024
    XPost: alt.politics.democrats, nyc.politics, sac.politics
    XPost: talk.politics.guns

    On 28 Mar 2022, Rafael <[email protected]> posted some news:t1ti72$38pqv$[email protected]:

    Lol! Fuck you starving Democrats who voted for this idiot.

    It takes money to make money, as the old saying goes, and, apparently, it
    also takes money � as much as $53 million � to give money away.

    Earlier this month, The Post broke the story that Mayor Adams is giving
    out pre-paid cash cards to migrants.

    Unusually for the mayor, Adams didn�t publicize this story himself, and
    his administration has for nearly a month failed to correct several public misperceptions about it.

    One misperception is that the program allows the city to give out just $50 million to migrants.

    No wonder the mayor has been reticent.

    This debit-card program � if you read the actual contract � has the
    potential to become an open-ended, multi-billion-dollar Bermuda Triangle
    of disappearing, untraceable cash, used for any purpose.

    It will give migrants up to $10,000 each in taxpayer money with no ID
    check, no restrictions and no fraud control.

    Why give debit cards out?
    When The Post exposed the mayor�s debit-card program earlier this month,
    the mayor�s office spun it as a money-saving program, to solve a problem: migrants staying in hotels don�t eat all their food.

    DocGo, the city�s no-bid �emergency� contractor to provide migrants with
    three meals a day, throws away up to 5,000 meals daily, wasting $7.2
    million a year.

    Some food is inedible � expired or rotten � and other food doesn�t meet migrants� dietary needs.

    Providing mass-scale meals competently and with options for specific needs
    � halal, kosher, vegan, non-gluten � isn�t that hard: the school system
    does it, airlines do it, hospitals and jails do it.

    It wouldn�t be that difficult for the city to solve this problem: on-site
    city auditors could refuse to pay for meals that are objectively inedible,
    with visible mold, for example, or with expired labeling.

    Solving the old boondoggle with a new boondoggle
    Instead of assuring that it�s existing no-bid �emergency� contractor
    fulfills its duty to provide edible food, however, the Adams
    administration has solved its problem by retaining a new no-bid
    �emergency� contractor � to provide a service with far more scope for
    waste, fraud, and abuse than stale sandwiches: giving out potentially
    billions of dollars of hard cash, few questions asked.

    Which vendors did the city�s Housing Preservation & Development consider
    for this contract, as qualified to provide this complex financial service?

    New York City is home to hundreds of top-tier financial-services and public-benefits providers, a dream of a competitive bidding pool, to
    ensure that the city gets a good price, as well as strong protections
    against fraud and abuse.

    But HPD considered only one: Newark-based Mobility Capital Finance, which
    also has an office in Harlem.

    MoCaFi was founded by Wole Coaxum, a former managing director at JPMorgan Chase, who said the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014
    inspired him to serve the �underbanked� and �narrow the racial wealth
    gap.�

    https://nypost.com/2024/02/19/opinion/inside-mayor-adams-migrant-debit- card-boondoggle-no-bid-bank-gets-50-million-border-crossers-up-to-10000-
    each/

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