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WASHINGTON: US president-elect Barack Obama called for changes to the government's 700-billion-dollar financial bailout, saying in an interview aired on Sunday that he wanted the programme to offer direct help for homeowners and small businesses.
"I, like many, are disappointed with how the whole TARP process has unfolded," Obama said on ABC's "This Week."
Obama was referring to the Troubled Asset Relief Programme set up last year to rescue reeling financial firms and free up the flow of credit.
"There hasn't been enough oversight," Obama said. "We found out this week in a report that we are not tracking where this money is going."
Obama, who will take office on January 20, sidestepped a question about whether he wanted outgoing President George W. Bush to request clearance from Congress to use the second half of the bailout funds.
He said the bailout programme needed to be revised to offer more assistance to families facing foreclosures on their homes and to bolster credit for small businesses.
"I think that when you look at how we have handled the home foreclosure situation and whether we've done enough in terms of helping families on the ground who may have lost their homes because they lost their jobs or because they got sick, we haven't done enough there."
He added: "What I've done is, asked my team to come together, come up with a set of principles around how we are going to maintain transparency, what are we going to do in terms of housing, how are we going to target small businesses that are under an enormous business crunch?"
The bailout launched by President George W. Bush's administration in the face of a meltdown on Wall Street has run into fierce criticism in Congress.
About 350 billion dollars from the mammoth fund has been allocated so far, mostly to ailing banks, as well as automakers, and insurance and credit card companies.
US media have reported the Bush administration is likely to make a request within days for the second half of the bailout funds so that it would be in place when Obama is sworn in on January 20. - AFP/de
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