Defence Minister Again Attempting to Defraud Taxpayers?
Several days ago I posted an analysis of the latest procurement travesty at the Department of National Defence: the replacement of the army’s medium-weight transport trucks under the Medium Support Vehicle Systems project. I pointed out that there appeared to be a minor financial boondoggle in the making: although the publicly estimated cost of the project was $1.1 billion, so far the estimates of just three of its four individual components were $1.3 billion. Something didn’t add up, I said.
And it seems that I was right, or rather that the situation was worse than I had suspected. Sources are telling Postmedia that the reason the bidding for the massive contract was abruptly terminated — three minutes before deadline, like a delinquent child racing into school with his homework from the night before — was that DND bureaucrats tried to tack $300 million in costs onto the project without telling the Treasury Board. It seems that the publicly cited $800 million figure for the military trucks (the rest of the $1.3 billion comes from a separate order for non-military trucks, and then various special equipment to mount on all the trucks for particular missions) was not quite in keeing with the $430 million which DND told the Treasury the trucks would cost.
This is yet another example of the deceitful scoundrel and Defence Minister Peter MacKay attempting to defraud the taxpaying Canadian public through dishonest bookkeeping related to his out-of-control procurement activities. Once again I expect we’ll be told — as we were with the F-35 fighter — that the fault lies with a platoon of rogue bureaucrats in DND (or maybe rogue officers within the Canadian Forces) running amok with taxpayers’ dollars. Nonsense. The fault lies entirely, squarely, and rightly with MacKay. He is the minister responsible, and if this report is true, once again he has been caught attempting to sneak hundreds of millions of dollars of our money out the back door without submitting accurate cost estimates to the public in advance.
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Boris
What’s the word for someone who recklessly endangers the nation’s defensive capabilities? Mackay might as well be blowing up bases and dockyards for the harm he’s doing.
Sixth Estate
Well, shutting them down, anyways.
Since that’s what will happen once we no longer have the ability to transport supplies between them, I imagine.
jrkrideau
It does sound like a few (?) bureaucrats and/or officers have gone a bit rogue, or else,they thought they have ministerial approval.
In either case, the current minister seems to show that he is totally incompetent at running his department. Some one tacks on a few hundred millions dollars to a possible contract and nobody tells him or, at least, not till what appears to be literally hours or even minutes before the close of bids?
Or did he hear about the cancellation from the press or perhaps from a friendly call from someone at Treasury Board?
And this after things like the CF 35 fiasco? Mr. McKay seems like a slow learner.
I wonder if the Conservatives’ punitive behaviour towards civil servants has had an effect in that middle or senior ranking bureaucrats so distrust their political masters that they don’t bring up issue like this because either they think it has tacit ministerial approval or that they just don’t want to be bearers of bad news or would be just as happy seeing their ministers crash and burn.
I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when senior TB people got the word about this. “When?”, “How much?”, “You’re joking?” etc.
I wonder if we have a whistle blower situation now?
Sixth Estate
I don’t have any friends working in DND, but from what I know of how this government works in other areas, it seems virtually inconceivable that a contract could grow by $300 million without approval from the minister’s office. Whether that means the minister or his chief of staff or someone else, I suppose I couldn’t say, but it sounds incredibly unlikely.
Saskboy
He’s safe. It’s not like it’s orange juice.
jrkrideau
@ Sixth Estate
It seems unlikely from what I know, too, but we have to remember the Gun Registry imbroglio though it seems to have just grown topsy-turvey rather than what has to be a deliberate cost over-run by DND.
Given other DND over-runs I would not be totally surprised if they ‘forgot’ to notify the minister’s office, especially when the minister and his predecessor both appear have been less than totally on-the-ball on various defence issues.
On the other hand they may have thought that they had tacit ministerial approval and only ran into serious problems when someone seems to have told Treasury Board about it.
Even Tony “Mr. Slusshie” Clement could not let this get by TB .
Mark Collins
At the CDFAI’s “3Ds Blog”, note the cautions on shipbuilding:
“DND Procurement Reform?”
http://www.cdfai.org/the3dsblog/?p=1291
Mark
Ottawa