NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — On Thursday morning, the New Orleans Office of Inspector General released an audit report showing shocking details from a multi-billion dollar project. The Inspector General said that the city and the New Orleans Sewage and Water board haven’t been truthful to the public.
Two billion dollars of federal and local funds were to be used to restore a large portion of the city’s damaged infrastructure. According to the Inspector General, Edward Michel, they were lacking adequate coordination of policies, procedures, and transparency with the public. The city and the SWBNO did not have coordination policies or procedures in place to guide the execution of the program known as the Joint Infrastructure Recovery Request Program.
According to the audit report, more than $8 million dollars is owed to the city for reimbursement requests by the sewerage and waterboard. This report said, “The city did not provide proactive or accurate information.” At the end of the report, the Office of the Inspector General gave recommendations on how the fix these problems and prevent them from happening in the future.
Here is the full report:
The City is at risk of losing hundreds of millions of dollars for any projects not completed by the 2023 FEMA deadline. It is vital that the City and the S&WB continue to improve their coordination efforts to avoid losing FEMA funding as well as ensure efficiency and transparency with the public for future infrastructure projects.
Edward Michel, Inspector General
