Consulting firm was paid $43-million in the 2020-21 fiscal year, $43-million in 2021-22, and $47-million up to the end of January, 2023
New figures show that Ottawa’s outsourcing of the main business pandemic loan program is one of the government’s largest contracts to a major consulting firm, raising renewed concerns about why it had never been publicly disclosed.in February that the $49-billion Canada Emergency Business Account program was mostly administered by Irish-American consultants Accenture Inc.
The updated financial statements show that the consulting firm was paid $43-million in the 2020-21 fiscal year, $43-million in 2021-22, and $47-million up to the end of January, 2023. The document then adds forecasted spending of $13-million for February and March, for a total of about $146-million in payments to Accenture.
Of the six global consulting firms being examined by the House committee, the only contract awarded during the pandemic that was larger was a $198-million, competitively sourced contract to Deloitte to modernize the Old Age Security payment system over 3½ years. OAS is the largest federal program and is forecast to send $75.9-billion to seniors in the 2023-24 fiscal year, according to the 2023 budget.
EDC declined to answer questions from The Globe, such as whether the contract was sole-sourced or why Accenture’s role was not publicly known. EDC has said it had to outsource the program because it fell outside of the agency’s core work, which is providing credit for Canadian enterprises doing business abroad.
“The public’s right to know how the government spends public funding is essential to keeping government accountable,” he said.The EDC financial statements also provide other amounts paid to external consultants, including: $4.5-million to unnamed external legal firms; $2-million to consulting firm KPMG for investigations; and more than $3-million to consulting firm Gartner for support on issuing requests for proposals and a “loan integrity operating model.
“Accenture is a long-standing partner of the Canadian government, and we are proud of the work we have done on behalf of Canada’s citizens,” spokesperson Stephanie Malcolm said in an e-mail. “We will work with the committee with regard to its inquiry,”
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