Unbelievable costs

Re: Liberal government launched Phoenix with no ‘ oversight’, Nov. 29

As a retired computer systems consultant, my mind simply cannot cope with the estimated cost of stabilizing the federal government’s “Phoenix” civil service pay system, covering about 300,000 employees, as $600 million and likely to climb.

My career began with the pay systems for 65,000 employees of a national railway that had to cope with many complications, such as some employees being paid by train mileage rather than hours worked, others who were paid a bonus of one minute per hour if they had to punch a time clock, those on trains crossing certain American states having to be paid weekly rather than semi-monthly for those portions of their work, those on ferries from Vancouver Island to U. S. ports who handled passengers’ luggage on the dock being subject to U.S. social security contributions, to name a few.

All these were handled by a handful of computer programmers including my young self, who wrote his first program in 1957.

Admittedly, costs have risen since then, but even $60 million would appear excessive; $600 million strikes me as just plain insane.

Lionel Albert, Knowlton, Que.

Not only was Phoenix launched without oversight, it seems to have had no sight at all!

Australia indicated that the system was a bust, yet it was still purchased. The government paid untold millions for something that is clearly without value.

Apparently it requires many more millions to (hopefully) make it work.

Why are we paying anything for a worthless system and not suing IBM for fraud and misrepresentation, as well as the pain and suffering it has caused the government and its employees?

Totally overlooked has been the impact over- and underpayments have caused civil servants in relation to their taxes. I happened to speak to a pleasant, efficient Service Canada employee about her situation of being overpaid. It has caused her a major tax liability even though she attempted to pay back the overage.

Phoenix was “clever” enough to pay her the excess funds she had sent back but it was not to get it right in the first place!

How about hiring a few thousand interim clerks to handwrite cheques to our civil servants? They couldn’t do a worse job or be more expensive than Phoenix.

Fergus Gamble, Stouffville, Ont.