Nunavut agencies not following rules in awarding contracts

A new report from Canadas auditor general has found that a Nunavut government department and two of its agencies dont always follow the rules when it comes to awarding and administrating contracts.

The three government groups studiedthe department of Community and Government Services, the Nunavut Housing Corporation and the Qulliq Energy Corporationspent $206 million on contracts in the 2010-2011 fiscal year.

"The whole idea of spending public funds on contracting, the whole system is designed to encourage competitive contracting, so that people in the territory get fair access, can compete for those contracts, and also if you have a competitive market the expectation is youll get good value and youll also drive prices down," said assistant auditor general Ronnie Campbell.

The report found the NNI Policywhich states that qualified, Inuit-owned, local, or Nunavut-based businesses get a favourable bid adjustment of up to 21 per cent when competitive bids are evaluatedwas not being applied consistently.

It also found that the rules for sole-sourcing contractswhen a contract is awarded without a public competitionwere not consistently followed.

The report states Community and Government Services followed the rules on seven of 13 sole-source contracts examined. At the Nunavut Housing Corporation, it was one in 12, and at Qulliq, out of 12 sole-source contracts the auditor generals office examined, none was awarded according to the rules.

The report found all competitive contracts for Community and Government Services and the majority for Qulliq Energy Corporations capital projects were awarded according to the rules. However, the Nunavut Housing Corporation was missing key documentation to support the awarding of half of its competitive contracts.

"It's a mixed bag of results," said Campbell. "There's some good stuff and there's some stuff that really, really needs to be improved upon in a big way."

The report cited familiar reasons for why contract awarding and administration is being done poorly: not enough employees and too few employees trained to do their jobs properly.

The report lays out recommendations, and the government departments have already agreed to work on them.