Mayor Adrian Fenty on Thursday sidestepped calls by Congress and others to have outsiders investigate the largest theft of public money in city history, saying he was content to let Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi, whose staff is charged with stealing $20 million, clean up the mess.
Fenty had nothing new to add a day after federal authorities announced the arrest of five people, including employees in the Office of Tax and Revenue, with fraud on a historic scale.
“The [finance office] is an independent agency,” said Carrie Brooks, Fenty’s spokeswoman. “He is confident that Gandhi will do everything possible to make sure that all systems are audited to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
But the clamoring grew Thursday to take the matter out of Gandhi’s hands, or at least augment the CFO’s reviews withoutside eyes.
U.S. Rep. , , R-Va., said the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, of which he is ranking member, “has the responsibility to ensure the District government maintains a sound financial system.” Davis called on Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman to launch an investigation.
“Whoever perpetrated this needs to go to jail for a long time,” Davis said. “An example needs to be made of this. This used to happen all the time in the D.C. government.”
James Kee, professor of public management at George Washington University, said the theft will “certainly affect how the city is perceived.” Fenty, he said, should appoint a special investigator.
“I have high respect for Gandhi, but I would want to know from a management standpoint how this happened,” Kee said. “I wouldn’t defer to Gandhi on this if I were mayor.”
Diane Gustus and Harriette Walters, the two Tax and Revenue employees, and three others were arrested Wednesday and charged with multiple fraud counts. They allegedly cashed more than 50 sham tax refund checks over the course of three years and spent lavishly without anyone in the government paying any notice.
The Office of the Chief Financial Officer is charged with “maintaining custody of all public funds” and, in coordination with the inspector general, with performing internal audits. Gandhi has acknowledged a “management failure” on his part. U.S. Rep. Danny K. Davis, D-Ill., who chairs the House oversight subcommittee on District affairs, said Thursday that Congress should allow D.C. to move forward with its internal investigation without federal intervention.
“There’s enough egg to go around, and you wonder how could it have possibly occurred,” Davis said, “but obviously it did, and I think they have the ability to deal with it, and I’d just as soon let them do it.”
The D.C. Council is expected to hold oversight hearings soon on the matter.
“It’s very unfortunate and a great embarrassment to the CFO, and he needs to figure out what happened and report to the mayor on what needs to be done to keep it from happening again,” said Alice Rivlin, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution and former chair of the D.C. Control Board.
