Do As I Say, Not As I Do? Caught with Fingers in the Till

"Some of those people would be [hired on sole-source contract] because they have expertise and experience in things we needed help with."
"We really do try to limit the number of contracts issued to former employees, but it does happen [sole-source contracting out] from time to time."
Auditor General of Canada, Michael Ferguson

Over a three year period a number of contracts were given to former Office of the Auditor General employees. Who were retired, but invited back  to the OAG to perform their old functions in auditing, and who received payment in sums hovering below the $25,000 limit on sole-sourced contracts. Moreover some of those contracts were expanded and their value increased, above the threshold figure.

This represents a practise frowned upon by former Auditor General Sheila Fraser who gave warning about such contacting practices in the past. She had stated that government departments "must fully justify the decision to use an exception to competitive bidding", zeroing in on Public Works and Government Services Canada, in 2008. She cautioned as well about amending contracts, changing the description of the work.

Now here is her successor -- who like her, lauded and famous for holding government departments' feet to the fire over questionable and wasteful practices -- doing precisely within his own group, what he and his predecessor frown upon as unethical, untrustworthy practise. One of the individuals who received OAG multiple contracts had served as principal of the human resources management audit team during Sheila Fraser's tenure.

Her contracts were valued at $24,930, $22,599 and $24, 999.38; eking out just under the limit of $25,000, for services described as "accounting and audit services". Another former employee whose working life with the OAG ended in November of 2014, received a $23,400 contract which was later amended and its value increased to $42,900. And there are quite a few more such instances.

The Office of the Auditor General in its own defence insists contracts were increased in value over the tendering threshold reflecting "operational needs" and that it was held to be in the public interest to amend the contracts. "In deciding whether to amend the contracts, we considered the nature, complexity and sensitivity of the accounting and audit service work involved", explained an OAG spokesperson.

"Having considered those factors, we determined that it would not have been in the public interest, and it would not be a good use of public funds, to have another contractor replace those contractors or restart the accounting and audit services work", she advised.

And while it is fairly common for government employees to act as consultants after leaving or retiring from a government department, the questionable sole-source contracts priced directly under the limit appears that the OAG, while critical of other government departments, was itself setting the terms of work they are themselves engaged in to deliberately bypass the tendering process, considered sacrosanct for others, not for themselves.