When TAs were issued under these contracts, the supplier offered up other resources but not the individuals who had been proposed in order to win the contract. Files for non-competitive contracts included written justification for awarding the contract through a sole-source process on the exceptions to competition provided by the government contracts regulations.
Insufficient records maintained by Shared Services Canada raised questions as to whether certain service orders under the GC Cloud Framework Agreement followed appropriate procurement practices. There was no documented procurement strategy for work associated with ArriveCAN. Multiple service orders issued to one supplier were treated as separate, unrelated requirements despite the fact that all were associated with ArriveCAN.
A majority of the files reviewed were for professional services contracts through which work was authorized for ArriveCAN under a TA. Overall, the documentation of TAs used for ArriveCAN was complete and for the most part was properly authorized. However, 20 TAs of the 143 reviewed did not include the specific tasks, including descriptions of the activities to be performed.
Resources authorized to work on a contract with TAs must be assessed by the business owner before a TA is issued to ensure that the individual meets criteria for the resource category, as specified in the contract. There were no assessments for more than 30 resources who were named on ArriveCAN-related TAs.
As the client department, CBSA was responsible for the proactive publication, or public disclosure, of contract information on the Open Government website for the contracts reviewed. Information was not proactively published for 17 of 41 contracts reviewed. That's 41%. This result runs counter to broader government commitments to transparency and strengthened accountability within the public sector.
As discussed throughout our report, we found practices for awarding competitive and non-competitive contracts, for issuing TAs and service orders, and for proactive publication of contract information that were inconsistent with government policy and that threatened the fairness, openness and transparency of government procurement. I have made 13 recommendations to address the issues identified with procurement practices associated with the ArriveCAN application.
Thank you for your attention.
I would also like to thank this committee for shining the light on these important procurement issues. It is from a commitment to fair, open and transparent public purchasing that we must improve Canada's procurement system. Systemic reviews and audits are imperative to the proper functioning of the Government of Canada's purchasing powers and the work of committees, such as OGGO, that play an important role in holding both the government and businesses accountable.
My office remains available to collaborate with committee members.
I would be pleased to answer your questions.
Thank you.