Hundreds of thousands of Phoenix cases still outstanding

As hundreds of thousands of Phoenix-related cases sit waiting to be resolved, the federal government is struggling to clear the backlog as new cases keep flooding in.

According to numbers released Thursday by Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), its pay centre in Miramichi, N.B., processed 89,000 between June 29 and July 26.

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The pay centre, however, also received 71,000 new cases during that period so the net reduction of casesrelated to the civil servant pay systemwas only about 18,000.

That meansthat as of July 26, there were still roughly 228,000 outstanding Phoenix cases requiring resolution, PSPC said in its update.

At the beginning of June, there were 265,000 cases needing help.

Since the federal government launched the consolidated pay systemin February 2016, tens ofthousands of public servants have found errors ontheir paycheques.

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Federal workers, retirees, students and employees on leave have reported beingoverpaid, underpaid or not paid at all.

PSPC is promising to issue monthly updates on how quickly the pay centre is processing thebacklog of outstanding Phoenix cases. Their numbers have been rounded for the sake of clarity,the department said.

The government has estimated it will cost more than $400 millionto fix the troubled pay system.