The US Agriculture Department committed $4.6 billion in bureaucratic errors during fiscal year 2006 with most of the mistakes tied to improper payments to farmers, the agency said in a review of some its largest programmes.
The 2006 fiscal year ended September 30. USDA said most of the improper payments were due to incomplete or missing paperwork generated by its Farm Service Agency although there were also problems with food stamp distributions.
Incorrect payments to farmers totalled $2.9 billion, or 11 percent, of the total $25.6 billion in funds the agency distributed. Last year, USDA found that only less than 1 percent of its farm programme disbursements were faulty.
The agency said that an estimated $2.7 billion of the FSA payments were tied to missing or incomplete paperwork, such as the absence of a signature. FSA blamed part of the big increase in errors on the fact that it now tracks a larger range of programmes.
USDA reviewed a total of $65.2 billion in payments, with the FSA responsible for about 40 percent of the figure. Improper payments in the food stamp programme rose to $1.6 billion, or 5.84 percent of total payments compared to $1.4 billion, or 5.88 percent, in 2005. Overall funds distributed increased by about $4 billion to $28.2 billion.