Ben Carson Audits HUD, Finds $500B in Errors from Obama Administration

Dr. Ben Carson is well known for his work in the medical field, including the fact that he became the first neurosurgeon to ever successfully detach conjoined twins.

When Trump asked Carson to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), many were unaware of the skills Carson possessed outside of the medical field.

In fact, Nancy Pelosi said Carson was, “disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified” to lead HUD.

One of Carson’s first big moves in the department was to audit HUD, which grew drastically under the Obama administration.

In the report, it was revealed that $520 billion in bookkeeping errors were made by the previous administration.

“The total amounts of errors corrected in HUD’s notes and consolidated financial statements were $516.4 billion and $3.4 billion, respectively,” the auditor report stated.

Outside of that staggering figure, there were many other problems that were allowed to fester for years.

There were several other unresolved audit matters, which restricted our ability to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to express an opinion. These unresolved audit matters relate to (1) the Office of General Counsel’s refusal to sign the management representation letter, (2) HUD’s improper use of cumulative and first-in, first-out budgetary accounting methods of disbursing community planning and development program funds, (3) the $4.2 billion in nonpooled loan assets from Ginnie Mae’s stand-alone financial statements that we could not audit due to inadequate support, (4) the improper accounting for certain HUD assets and liabilities, and (5) material differences between HUD’s subledger and general ledger accounts. This audit report contains 11 material weaknesses, 7 significant deficiencies, and 5 instances of noncompliance with applicable laws and regulations.

The report went on to offer three recommendations going forward.

We recommend that HUD (1) reassess its current consolidated financial statement and notes review process to ensure that sufficient internal controls are in place to prevent and detect errors, (2) evaluate the current content of HUD’s consolidated note disclosures to ensure compliance with regulations and GAAP, and (3) develop a plan to ensure that restatements are properly reflected in all notes impacted.

The biggest problem is that these issues and errors continued for years and developed into one giant problem that must be dealt with sooner rather than later.

The auditors added that the problems “were due to an inability to establish a compliant control environment, implement adequate financial accounting systems, retain key financial staff, and identify appropriate accounting principles and policies.”

With a president actively pushing financial cuts any and everywhere possible, Carson may need to revert back to his medical training to start cutting away unnecessary waste.

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