Thank you.
The Auditor General did identify opportunities for us to improve our controls in and around billing and contracting, and we have agreed to implement those recommendations. I wanted to focus on the controls that EDC did have in place, so again we'll go back to the time we were at during the pandemic.
We were very focused on outcomes as opposed to the individual activities: How do we make sure that we get $49 billion into the hands of 900,000 small businesses in Canada as soon as possible? In terms of what we were doing, we were focused on making sure those outcomes were being delivered by our vendor. That was through the form of daily huddles. It was through meetings that were happening every single day to ensure they were actually delivering what we needed. At the disbursement phase, it was to get money out the door and to do eligibility, and then later in the program it was building the collections ecosystem.
We did review the invoices that were received. We certainly have an opportunity around documentation and around the more detailed tracking. We have made improvements in that area over time. In 2023, we added all of the time sheets into our accounts payable system that all of our approvers, me included, have access to. We've more recently added attestations around the work performed. We've more recently added all of the metrics in and around the call centre.
Specifically to your question on the call centre, it wasn't actually an overbilling issue. It was a documentation or tracking issue. A number of those resources were working on collections processes and not on the call centre, so it wasn't a question of actually billing for more hours than they worked. It was the type of work that they were doing while they were ensuring we had coverage for a call centre that needed to be available to handle questions that we continued to receive and that we do continue to receive from loanholders.