Govt. Employees Bilk Taxpayers

Among the examples listed are a Federal Aviation Administration employee who used the government card to pay $3,700 for laser eye surgery, a State Department employee who took a first-class Hawaiian vacation on the government and a Pentagon employee who got reimbursed for more than a dozen airline tickets—totaling nearly $10,000—that he never bought.

clipped from www.judicialwatch.org Systematic fraud, waste and mismanagement in the federal travel card program has for years allowed government employees to bilk U.S. taxpayers out of millions of dollars. Issued to federal employees who travel more than five times a year, the charge cards are regularly used by workers from a wide range of agencies to buy personal items, travel first-class or simply steal cash from the government. Details of the ongoing fraud are documented in a congressional report made public this week. Among the examples listed are a Federal Aviation Administration employee who used the government card to pay $3,700 for laser eye surgery, a State Department employee who took a first-class Hawaiian vacation on the government and a Pentagon employee who got reimbursed for more than a dozen airline tickets—totaling nearly $10,000—that he never bought.