Canada’s procurement ombudsman fears that the ‘troubling’ practice of government suppliers passing off work to others, as revealed in the ArriveCAN app scandal, is in fact commonplace within other ministries.
“It’s absolutely something we’re considering looking into, not just specifically for ArriveCAN but broadly, to see how prevalent it is. [ailleurs au fédéral] », Declared Alexander Jeglic, the Government of Canada’s procurement ombudsman, in front of federal elected officials.
The head of the investigation into good practices in government contracts appeared Tuesday before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts. It is one of two federal committees investigating the development of the ArriveCAN border control app during the COVID-19 pandemic. A police investigation was also launched.
Strategy denounced
Mr. Jeglic unambiguously denounced the practice which he calls “ bait and switch » (“phishing strategy”), or the use of suppliers whose sole function is to act as intermediaries between the government and those who will actually carry out the work.
This is the case of GC Strategies, a two-person Ottawa company that received $19.1 million to develop ArriveCAN, without any IT expertise. This company even helped draft the calls for tenders for the project, according to a recent report from the Auditor General of Canada that was devastating for the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).
An analysis by the Office of the Procurement Ombudsman concludes that for 76% of ArriveCAN project contracts, “some or all of the resources proposed by the successful supplier did not perform any work under the contract.” » This contributed to taxpayers not getting value for their money.
Lack of information
Although the CBSA has a duty to proactively publish all of its contracts on the specialized “Open Government” site, this has not been done for a large portion (41%) of the contracts in the ArriveCAN application. According to Alexander Jeglic, the problem of lack of information on contracts is “very prevalent” among federal ministries, which for him is “very frustrating”.
To date, and despite the intense media coverage of this affair over the past two weeks, the Government of Canada is not able to say precisely how much money it has sent to GC Strategies over the years. Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) said Duty that “Open Government” data cannot be added together to obtain a picture of the situation.
The minister responsible, Jean-Yves Duclos, estimated $59 million in contracts were awarded by PSPC, a compilation that does not include contracts awarded directly by other departments.
” My job it is to ensure that the ministry does its job well, it is to ensure that the processes are well followed,” he clarified to a question from Dutybefore blaming a few seconds later “the few officials who did not do their job” in this matter.