Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s (R) office downplayed the significance of alleged Somali fraud occurring in the state, equating massive amounts of fraud to stores dealing with shoplifting.
While DeWine has indicated that the state “has strong safeguards in place to prevent fraud in the state’s publicly funded childcare system,” Dan Tierney, a spokesman for DeWine, used grocery stores as an example to point out that getting fraud as “close to zero as possible” would likely never happen, according to Cleveland.com.
“If you’ve got a grocery store, you’re going to have to deal with shoplifting,” Tierney said in a statement. “You want your number to be as close to zero as possible, but that’s probably never going to happen.”
Per the outlet, after citizen journalist Nick Shirley released a video of himself visiting several childcare centers in Minnesota that allegedly received millions of dollars in federal aid, despite there being no signs of children, “video creators” also “posted videos questioning Somali-run childcare centers in Columbus.”:
Columbus has the second-largest Somali community in the country after Minneapolis. The same video creators who went to Minnesota posted videos questioning Somali-run childcare centers in Columbus. Those posts prompted two-thirds of Ohio House Republicans to call for a sweeping review– of the state’s system.
Breitbart News’s Sean Moran reported that Tierney had previously said the state has “robust anti-fraud measures,” adding that it is “unfortunately the cost of doing business.”
“If people are out there who could not contemplate that people were trying to defraud the public through daycare centers, I understand it’s new to them … but it’s been known to the state for decades,” Tierney said, declining to comment on potential fraud perpetrated by Somalian communities in the country.
“So therefore, we have robust anti-fraud measures to try and stop this; this is something that is unfortunately the cost of doing business.”
In response to the allegations of potential fraud occurring at daycares, Ohio State Rep. Josh Williams (R) and other Republicans have called for “unannounced inspections of all childcare facilities receiving public dollars.”