Maine’s government just slammed the brakes on payments to a charity accused of bilking taxpayers out of over a million bucks.
Breitbart reported that the Pine Tree State’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has cut off MaineCare payments to Gateway Community Services, a Somali-run charity, after audits exposed more than $1 million in questionable billing for interpreting services provided to Somali migrants.
Gateway, founded in 2015 by Somali migrant Abdullahi Ali, isn’t new to the spotlight of scrutiny. Back between 2015 and 2018, the organization was already under investigation for overbilling the state to the tune of over $600,000.
Fast forward to audits covering March 2021 through December 2022, and the numbers are even uglier—Gateway allegedly overcharged MaineCare by $1,068,598 for services that raise more questions than answers.
A third audit in 2024 found yet more violations, keeping the charity under a cloud of suspicion for ongoing issues.
Adding fuel to the fire, Gateway has ties to several prominent Maine Democrats, including State Senator Chloe Maxmin and strategist Joanne D’Arcangelo, not to mention B.J. McCollister, a former Biden 2020 staffer.
While these connections don’t prove wrongdoing, they do raise eyebrows about whether political clout shielded Gateway from earlier accountability.
Meanwhile, Abdullahi Ali, the charity’s founder, stirred further controversy by launching a bid to run for president of Jubaland, Somalia, right in the middle of these fraud allegations.
Assistant Maine Senate Minority Leader Republican Matt Harrington has been sounding the alarm on Gateway and other potential MaineCare abuses since May.
“This is taxpayer money, and we should be looking into this,” Harrington said, pointing to what he sees as a failure of state leadership to act swiftly.
His frustration is palpable, and it’s hard to disagree when hard-working Mainers are footing the bill for what looks like a systemic lapse in oversight.
Even U.S. Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, a top Republican on the House oversight committee, got involved, cautioning the U.S. Treasury about welfare fraud tied to Gateway’s operations.
While the Bangor Daily News broke the story of the audit findings, the bigger question lingers—why did it take so long for Maine’s leaders to pull the plug on these payments?
Perhaps it’s time for state officials to stop playing catch-up and start protecting taxpayer dollars before the next million slips through the cracks.
