(Patriot.Buzz) – In a sudden turn of events shedding light on how things are run in liberal bastions, a big scandal recently unfolded in New York City when a bunch of employees from the public housing sector got caught up in a bribery mess.
Due to the number of people involved the Justice Department announced it was the biggest batch of bribery charges it has ever thrown down in one day.
Around 70 people who either worked for or used to work for the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) were accused of taking money under the table from companies that wanted contracts to work on public housing projects.
According to The New York Times these individuals supposedly took more than $2 million in bribes to help these companies land jobs fixing up almost 100 buildings across all the city’s boroughs. In return bribers got a slice of around 10% to 20% of the contract value and sometimes even more.
A lot of the corrupt deals were for smaller fixes like windows or plumbing that did not need a public bidding process if they cost less than $10,000, which made it easier for corruption to slip through unnoticed.
These small contracts had already been flagged before as trouble spots for corruption, with some contractors even facing charges back in 2021.
Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said at a news briefing, “This culture of corruption at NYCHA ends today.” He described the whole thing as a “classic pay to play” setup.
However bribery is not the only problem NYCHA’s dealing with. The agency, which is the biggest of its kind in the U.S., looks after more than half a million people and has been under fire for not taking good care of its buildings, which apparently need around $78 billion in repairs.
The authority also faces complaints ranging from rats and leaks to busted elevators and a super long waitlist for housing. On top of that the Housing Authority is not collecting as much rent as it used to and it hit a record low collection rate of 65% in 2022.
