(Ontario Premier Dalton McGunity)
Canada largest province is reeling from a billion-dollar spending scandal. And Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty blames it all on a lack of oversight.
It has already caused one cabinet minister to resign and prior to an auditor's report released Wednesday, the scandal had claimed other casualties among bureaucrats.
The story is about abuse and excesses at a health agency that is responsible for collating eHealth records. The governing Liberals came under fire for using it for helping out their friends with lucrative contracts, many of which did not go through the proper tendering process.
On Tuesday, Health Minister David Caplan, anticipating a serious indictment, resigned from cabinet.
Here's a summary of the findings by Ontario auditor general Jim McCarter into the Cdn $1 billion that Ontario has spent trying to create electronic health records:
- Two-thirds of the value of all eHealth Ontario contracts were awarded without competitive bidding
- Allegations of favouritism at eHealth in awarding the contracts were largely true
- Consultants were largely running the show and there was a lack of government oversight
- One company received a $1-million, sole-sourced contract to help hire 15 managers, but only five positions were filled when the contract was terminated and no money was returned
- A firm was selected as the successful bidder even though its bid of $3.1 million was more than five times higher than another qualified bidder and well above the approved budget of $700,000
- One consulting firm received a total of 18 single-sourced contracts worth $7 million
- There was no overall government plan detailing the strategy to create electronic health records, leading to $800 million being spent on a computer network that is used at only one per cent of capacity
- Ontario still spends $72 million a year to operate the network
- Ontario is near the "back of the pack" in the development of electronic health records compared to the other provinces
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