Panel steps up criticism of Treasury over TARP: report

The draft report being issued by a five-member congressional oversight panel said there appear to be "significant gaps" in Treasury's ability to track hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money, the paper said.

"The panel's initial concerns about the [Troubled Asset Relief Program] have only grown, exacerbated by the shifting explanations of its purposes and the tools used by Treasury," the draft report said, according to the Journal.

The draft report found that the department has "not yet explained its strategy" for stabilizing the financial markets, the paper said.

The report faults Treasury having no ability to ensure banks lend the money they have received from the government, having no standards for measuring the success of the program and for ignoring or offering incomplete answers to panel questions, the paper said.

The bipartisan panel, headed by Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren, reserved its most strident criticism for Treasury's approach to dealing with the foreclosure crisis at the root of the economic turmoil, according to the paper.

Treasury hasn't used any of TARP's $700 billion to help borrowers refinance or deal with mortgages that are worth more than the market value of the homes they are tied to, the report noted, according to the paper.

"Treasury needs to be clear as to what, if anything, it has done, and if it insists on taking credit for private sector efforts, it must explain what 'help' means," the draft report said, according to the paper.

The Treasury and the panel did not immediately respond to a Reuters email seeking comment that was sent outside of normal business hours.

(Reporting by Ajay Kamalakaran in Bangalore)