The Auditor General has fired two employees and is investigating a third after it emerged the employees were earning money from Government of Canada contracts on the side.
“The employees did not disclose this information to their managers. None of the employees involved were auditors,” said a statement from the Office of the Auditor General (OAG).
“In two cases, an investigation was conducted, and the employees no longer work for the OAG.”
As first reported by the National Post, the investigations led the OAG to revoke the employees’ security clearance and then terminate their employment.
Both cases were first referred to the RCMP in early January 2024, but on the advice of the Mounties, the OAG then referred them to the Ottawa Police Service the following month.
The OAG said it will not comment further on the third case because it remains under investigation.
The OAG said the now-former employees did not have any outside contracts with the OAG, and that it will not be disclosing the names of the companies they were involved with.
In light of the discovery, the OAS said it will be rolling out additional ethics training for employees in the coming months and will ensure that going forward, additional controls are “implemented to verify outside employment or contracts.”
ArriveCan and Dalian Enterprise
In February, Auditor General Karen Hogan delivered a highly critical report on the costs of developing the ArriveCan app, saying spending on the app increased dramatically because of the government’s over-reliance on outside contractors.
That report revealed that one of the contractors, Dalian Enterprise, received $7.9 million for its work on the app as of last March.
It later emerged that Dalian’s president and founder, David Yeo, is also an employee of the Department of National Defence (DND). The company says Yeo only became a public servant after the project was completed.
The company has received more than $200 million in government contracts since 2015, according to a CBC News analysis of documents tabled in the House of Commons in January.
The documents were filed in response to an order paper question from Conservative MP Dan Muys. They list the contracts awarded to Dalian from each government department between November 2015 and November 2023.
Source Agencies
