The federal government is demanding a subcontractor of IT and companies that used it through questionable billing practices.
The Government is looking for $ 1.6 million from the IT professional based in Ottawa for “unfair enrichment”, according to judicial documents presented last Friday. They claim that the contractor announced the civil service for hours that did not work.
The demand, which also appoints seven companies, occurs when government acquisition practices and hiring face greater scrutiny from the report of the condemnatory general auditor last year on the Arrivecan application.
CBC News contacted the IT contractor to comment, but did not receive an answer. CBC News does not appoint the contractor because he has not presented a defense and the accusations have not been tested in the Court.
Between 2018 and 2022, the contractor had been hired by several companies that had contracts with the federal government, according to the documents.
The government alleges that the IT professional presented time leaves with overlapping working hours.
“In numerous cases, [the defendant] He presented time leaves in multiple contracts where the cumulative total exceeded 24 hours in one day, “says the government’s claim statement.
“As it is not possible that the defendant … the amount of hours has really worked, this questioned the validity and reliability of all the time sheets.”
Public services and the acquisition of Canada (PSPC) interviewed the contractor as part of an internal investigation, according to judicial documents. The contractor told PSPC that he had been invoicing companies for “waiting time”, where he was available to carry out the job, but did not do any task established in the contracts between him and the companies, according to the documents.
“None of the entries in its reviewed sheets reviewed actually referred to the waiting time, whether directly or indirectly,” says the government’s claim.
“In all cases, entries in [the defendant’s] Revised time sheets were made to seem that I was doing work under the terms of the contracts. “
Arrivecan contractor appointed in demand
The government is also looking for several quantities, for a total of $ 1.6 million, of companies that outsource the work of the IT professional, claiming that they are “responsible for breach of contract” and presented inaccurate information to the government.
The claim statement alleges that all companies lacked an independent system “to verify the precision of [the defendant’s] Time leaves “.
“The corporate defendants … each one did not ensure that their appeal, [the defendant]It was available for work and to have a system to monitor, supervise and verify that [the defendant] They sent time sheets that accurately recorded the time they really worked, “says the government’s claim statement.
The PSPC final report on the contractor’s time sheets was presented in April 2023, according to the documents.
Last year’s general auditor’s report on the Arrivecan application marked significant concerns regarding the project acquisition process. He pointed out that the final cost was “impossible to determine” due to poor record maintenance.
GC Strategies, the main contractor involved in Arrivecan, is one of the companies appointed in the lawsuit filed last week. The government is looking for $ 198,000 of that company in this case.
Court documents list a series of contracts in the lawsuit, but none of them suggests that they are related to Arrivecan.
CBC News contacted GC Strategies lawyer to comment on this demand, but did not receive an answer.
The RCMP has been investigating GC strategies, but one of the owners has said that the investigation is not related to Arrivecan.
At the request of a Committee from the Chamber of the Commons, the General Auditor launched a complete audit of all government contracts granted to GC strategies. The company has previously denied any irregularity in its work with the federal government.
Following the report of the General Auditor on Arrivecan, the Government sent three cases of suspected contractor fraud to the RCMP last March.
In June, the RCMP charged a consultant for overloading the Government by approximately $ 250,000. Those cases were not related to Arrivecan.
