Changes to government procurement needed, PM says
Government ‘rethinking’ process: Trudeau
• Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says there need to be “significant changes” in public sector procurement and contracting amid growing controversies around Arrivecan and bureaucrats having undeclared contracts with the government.
Wednesday, Trudeau said his government is “rethinking” how the public service does contracting and procurement in light of a scathing auditor general report on the Arrivecan application and a growing number of examples of public servants with undeclared government contracts on the side.
“This is an unacceptable situation and there needs to be changes on this. Government needs to make sure that everyone from the political level to the public service level are responsible, transparent stewards of the public money,” Trudeau said.
“What we’ve seen in terms of the procurement process that’s ongoing within government: there needs to be significant changes,” he added. “We will be making changes.”
Trudeau was responding to questions on a report by National Post that the auditor general’s office had recently discovered that three of its own employees were earning side money off undisclosed government contracts. Two have since been fired and their cases were referred to police, while the third is still under investigation.
The firings, which occurred between September and December last year, come to light as questions swirl about how the company of a federal public servant, David Yeo, was able to obtain a nearly $8-million contract to work on the Arrivecan app.
He has since been suspended from the public service and the company said in a statement that he became a bureaucrat only after work on the application was completed.
The head of the federal procurement department also revealed last week that five employees who had breached conflict of interest rules — including for having a second job contracting for the government — had been fired or resigned in the last year.
Last month, Auditor General Karen Hogan published a report on the development of the Arrivecan app that found the procurement process was riddled with a “glaring disregard” for “basic” principles that allowed the costs to spiral out of control.
She noted that the cost of the application ballooned from $80,000 to around $60 million, but wasn’t able to confirm the final number (which could be lower or higher) because of some of the worst government bookkeeping she’d seen in her years as a public service auditor.
In French, Trudeau said ongoing revelations about government procurement, contracting and undeclared conflicts of interest show that there are “unacceptable practices” within the public service.
“That’s why we launched investigations into the matter and we expect there to be profound changes in the way the government and the public service take care of procurement,” he said.
When asked for more detail about how the government was rethinking procurement and contracting practices, Procurement Minister Jean-yves Duclos’ spokesperson Marie-france Proulx pointed to some changes the department has implemented since the Arrivecan
report.
“Additional measures have already been implemented, including improving the evaluation requirements and making certain there is more transparency from suppliers around their pricing and use of subcontractors,” Proulx wrote in a statement.
Trudeau’s office did not immediately responded to
questions about what changes it was considering.
Speaking to a House committee last week, both federal Comptroller General Roch Huppé and Hogan warned against adding new layers of red tape and bureaucracy to an already heavy federal procurement process.
“We do not believe that more rules are the answer.
Procurement is already complex enough,” Huppé said.
“Rather, this issue serves as a clear reminder that departments and agencies need to ensure that they are placing the utmost importance on ensuring that procurements are fair, open, transparent and withstand the closest public scrutiny.”