Thank you, Chair.
Good afternoon, members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today.
As the chair said, my name is Rob Stewart and I am joined by my colleague Daniel Pilon.
Today, I will give you an overview of Global Affairs Canada's overall role in the awarding of contracts and of how we make payments for services once they have been provided. I will also provide a high-level overview of the process the department followed in awarding and paying for the Pomp & Circumstance contract requested by the minister's office in April 2020.
Like all departments, Global Affairs Canada and the ministers' offices of the department have the authority to award contracts up to a certain value, as outlined in the government contracting regulations and the Treasury Board contracting policy, now known as the Treasury Board directive on procurement.
When officials in the department or exempt staff from a minister's office have delegated financial authority and make a decision to obtain goods and services from the private sector, they send a request for a contract to the departmental procurement staff. The request includes a description of the work to be performed, and depending on the dollar value, a supplier may already be identified.
Depending on the nature and value of the request, the procurement office may then undertake several different contracting steps to award the contract. These might involve a sole-source contract or a more formal competitive bidding process. These decision points and the contracting processes and procedures that departmental staff follow are outlined in the policies I have mentioned.
Once the contract is awarded, the minister's official or exempt staff member who requested the contract is responsible for monitoring the supplier's performance to ensure that goods and services are provided in accordance with the contract and to the requester's satisfaction.
Upon receipt of an invoice, the delegated person certifies that the services have been received and approves payment of the invoice. This invoice is then forwarded to finance staff, who process the invoice and issue payment to the supplier.
In the particular instance of the contract with Pomp & Circumstance, the initial request for media training services was sent to procurement staff by the chief of staff to Minister Ng. The chief of staff was the minister's office staffer with the appropriate delegated authority to make such a request.
As the proposed amount of the contract was $16,950, the procurement staff determined that the value was under the sole-source threshold of $40,000. The procurement staff therefore proceeded to award the contract following sole-source procedures.
Once the contract was drafted and signed, the minister's office then worked with the company to obtain the required services. Once the services were delivered, an invoice for those services was received, verified, and approved by the minister's office and sent to Department of Finance staff for processing. Payment was then made in full to the vendor.
I will now gladly answer your questions.
