On 28 Mar 2022, Rafael <joe@gmail.com> posted some
news:t1ti72$38pqv$105@news.freedyn.de:

> 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/