Some of P.E.I.'s spending on moving medical records from paper to computers did not go through a competitive bid process, a review by the auditor general shows.
The Electronic Health Records Initiative was a major focus of Auditor General Colin Younker's annual report, released Wednesday.
In one case, Younker found that the Department of Health could not find a contract for a payment made to a private company in connection with the EHR.
Younker found from the beginning of the EHR initiative in 2005 that it was poorly managed. The auditor general reviewed several of the contracts awarded to private vendors.
In that sample, he found two contracts worth more than $50,000 that did not go through a competitive bid process, as required by Treasury Board policy. He also found three contracts that exceeded a value of $100,000, and should therefore have been approved by Treasury Board, but were not.
"They're just not following policy, that's what they're not doing," Younker said. 'Smacks of patronage'
NDP Leader James Rodd told CBC News Thursday in light of the e-health scandal in Ontario, which led to the resignation of the heath minister there, Islanders deserve to know more about the companies hired to do the work, and the relationship those companies may have with the Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments that hired them.
"When you have an untendered contract, then that leaves lots of questions. We believe there should be full disclosure over this whole affair," Rodd said.
"You have a government who has had a track record of getting contracts without tender, and in this particular case that happened. Payments were paid out for work done that wasn't acknowledged by treasury. It smacks of patronage. And Islanders deserve to have some transparency here."
The NDP is asking for full disclosure of the companies and individuals that received business without following Treasury Board policies.
Health Minister Carolyn Bertram said Treasury Board policy allows contracts to be awarded without competition when there's an urgent need, and that's what happened in some of the contracts in question.
"Practices can be waived when need be and, at the time, it was felt that the company that won the tendering was needed very quickly to come in and work for government," she said.
Bertram denied that patronage was at work in awarding the contracts, and said government will release the names of people and companies within a few days.
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Quelle/Source: CBC News, 08.04.2010
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