Fraud protection is something of paramount importance in the skeptic and cynical world of today and where social security and other veteran benefit policies are protected against fraud, federal retirement benefits is not.
This is something that was always in the attention of the law forming bodies and now courtesy a bill put forward by Sen. Heidi Heitkamp and James Lankford is possibly going to rectify this issue once and for all.
Mr. James Lankford is the head of the governmental affairs committee on regulatory affairs and federal management and the homeland security department of Senate. He has in strong words emphasized on the fact that once this bill of his gets passed, strict penalties will be carried out against any financial over lookers who are found guilty of committing fraud against a federal officer. He further said that the current rules are not clear nor firm and it was high time somebody changed that.
The payee fraud prevention act encompasses both the FERS and the CSRS retired officials. James said that he was made aware of the issue by several retiree advocate groups that were constantly trying to make things right. During this period, he was trying to reduce the retirement wait tenures. On average, a federally retired officer has to wait around eight months (if not more) before first being able to enjoy their benefits and this is definitely something in demand of attention.
The recent OPM data security breach has stolen the main spotlight inside the agency and in the eyes of media as well but Lankford believes that even though security vulnerabilities need to be removed and data centers be made a lot securer, he can’t let millions of employees suffer because of fraud.
Seeing such positive efforts made by senators only proves to us that there are in fact people striving to make this nation a lot more prosperous one. Here’s hoping that it continues.
