Manitoba’s ombudsman tabled the finding of her investigation last week surrounding the attempt by the NDP government to award a five million dollar contract for flood fighting equipment without putting the contract out to tender. The provincial ombudsman found that not only did the NDP government break its own purchasing rules by trying to award the untendered contract, but that it ignored the warnings and concerns of senior civil servants in government when doing it.
The problems go back to the summer of 2014 when NDP Cabinet Ministers announced that the province would purchase $5 million of flood fighting equipment and also announced the type of equipment before putting it to a competitive tender. Competitive tenders are used to ensure that government is getting the best value it can for the public taxdollars’ that it spends.
According to the ombudsman’s investigation, senior civil servants raised concerns with the government about the type of product that was being purchased and that the purchase was to be untendered. NDP Minister Steve Ashton announced that the province would be purchasing Tiger Dams. However, civil servants felt that this wasn’t the best use of taxdollars because they felt enough of this equipment was already owned and that different types of flood fighting equipment should be bought. Further, they indicated any purchase should be put out to tender.
The ombudsman’s investigation found that the NDP government simply ignored these concerns and ordered the untendered purchase of Tiger Dams. However, a whistleblower from within government raised concerns and caused investigations to begin happening. The whole thing became such a mess that some media reports have indicated it was one of the reasons a rebellion began in the NDP late in 2014.
Overall the ombudsman’s report is very troubling. It outlined clearly that the NDP have little regard when it comes to ensuring taxpayers are getting good value for their money and they have little respect for the advice of our professional civil servants. When confronted with the report, NDP Premier Greg Selinger was asked whether there would be any consequences to his Cabinet as a result of the findings. Mr. Selinger said, no, he felt everyone had learned their lesson.
It’s hard to believe that after sixteen years in government the NDP has only now learned the lesson of ensuring Manitobans are getting good value for their taxdollars and following the rules that exist in government. And it is very concerning to think that this kind of behavior can be so completely ignored and accepted within the NDP government.
