The public sessions are coming, but the preparation is still underway and the senate special committee held its third private session yesterday at the National Assembly Building. And the news coming out of that meeting is that the vast majority of Social Security's loans are not properly secured. The 4 person committee reviewed loan files covering 29 million dollars worth of loans and found that only 6 million dollars of those loans are properly secured according to the board's own guidelines. That's 29 million dollars, or one-fifth, of approximately 130 million dollars in what are strictly considered loans. The board has tens of millions dollars more in investments which will have to be examined separately.
Another preliminary finding is that for 6 months of an as yet unspecified time period, the investment committee was not vested with proper authority to carry out its work. The meetings continue and the committee has been given a budget which it will use to hire an auditor to aid in its investigations. Public hearing are expected to be announced shortly and those will take place in the chamber of the National Assembly.