GM has faced intense scrutiny this year
It said the government approved $3 million in pay raises, from 4 percent to 20 percent, for nine GM executives, most of whom had previously received raises several years in a row. The government sold its last shares of GM in December.
“Treasury loosened its own pay restrictions for senior executives at General Motors and Ally Financial year after year, even as taxpayer losses in these companies mounted,” Christy Romero, the special inspector general, said in a statement. “Treasury could be sending the message that much-needed reforms coming out of the financial crisis are no longer necessary or required in exchange for TARP dollars.”
A report issued in April by Romero estimated that taxpayers lost $11.2 billion on the GM bailout, up from a previous estimate of $10.5 billion. The automaker needed the $49.5 billion in aid to survive its 2009 bankruptcy restructuring. GM went public again in November 2010.
GM has faced intense scrutiny this year over its failure to correct an ignition-switch defect in small cars for more than a decade, even as it learned of fatal crashes. The company recalled 2.6 million cars this year to replace the switches. It has been under investigation by Congress and the Justice Department.
Detroit-based Ally, formerly called GMAC Inc., was the auto loan and mortgage arm of GM until it was taken over by the government in the 2008 bailout. Ally has repaid $18 billion, or about $875 million more than the $17.2 billion in aid it received. The company went public again in April. Treasury sold a chunk of its stock and raised $2.38 billion in the offering.