UPAC arrests six in awarding of Revenue Quebec IT deal
Six people were arrested Wednesday morning by the provincial anti- corruption squad on allegations of fraud and breach of trust in the awarding of a $ 24- million information technology contract for Revenue Quebec.
Two employees of Revenue Quebec and employees of IBM and Informatique EBR were the targets of the arrests.
At 7 a. m., 50 police officers fanned out in the Quebec City region and the north and south shores of Montreal armed with arrest warrants.
Six people were found in their homes and there are still two outstanding warrants for other people believed to be involved in the scheme, said UPAC commissioner Robert Lafrenière.
The arrests are the culmination of an investigation that began in June 2014 concerning events that took place between March 2011 and June 2014.
It is alleged that two Revenue Quebec employees, Hamid Iatmanene and Jamal El Khaiat, provided a consortium made up of IBM and EBR with privileged information allowing the consortium to land a lucrative public contract of $ 24 million.
Revenue Quebec sent out a news release confirming their co- operation with the UPAC investigation and stating that Iatmanene and El Khaiat were relieved of their jobs on June 20 and July 21, 2014, respectively.
“It is alleged the strategy was to favour the consortium by supplying them with confidential information to win the bid,” said Lafrenière.
As for what the Revenue Quebec employees received for their information, in either cash or services, Lafrenière said he was not in a position to say as neither man has had his day in court.
The companies in the consortium could be implicated in the case as well, he added.
Treasury Board President Martin Coiteux ordered an investigation to determine if any of the suspects arrested by UPAC on Wednesday were “involved in one way or another” in any other government contracts.
Informatique EBR has at least 14 contracts with various government departments, and IBM has 24.
Coiteux confirmed that Quebec’s securities regulator, the Authorités des marchés financiers, had reviewed the companies two weeks ago and cleared them to bid on public contracts.
He told reporters at the National Assembly that the incident was not a symptom of a larger problem in Quebec’s IT sector.
“We shouldn’t generalize based on specific cases, but we shouldn’t trivialize them either,” he said.
The Parti Québécois and Coalition Avenir Québec repeated their calls for a comprehensive public inquiry into IT contracts with the Quebec government.
When the CAQ demanded an inquest a month ago, the party described Quebec as an “open bar for private consultants and IT firms.”
On Wednesday, the CAQ’s treasury board critic Éric Caire called again for an inquiry into the IT sector comparable to the Charbonneau Commission.
“Today, UPAC gave us another reason for that commission,” he told media at the National Assembly. “Today, we don’t assume there’s collusion. We don’t assume there’s corruption. Charges were laid by UPAC and arrests were made.”