Ontario’s Auditor-General has released his report exposing more shameful waste. And the largest boondoggle of them all is the Ministry of Community and Social Services’ contract with Andersen Consulting to “revamp” the welfare system. The province has already paid Andersen $15.5 million for work that the A-G values at $2.4 million. He goes on to say that he can find no evidence that the $180 million five-year contract with Andersen has resulted in any improvements to the system.
Among other findings, the A-G reports that the government paid $85 per hour for data entry clerks! Not that we think for a moment that the workers were paid these fat wages. They’re probably earning a rate comparable to CUPE members while the American-owned multinational pocketed the profits.
And how many welfare families could you support for $180 million? In Ontario, a single mother and child receives a maximum of $957 a month, down from $1,221 before the Harris cuts. At that rate, 16,000 families could receive benefits for a year for the cost of the Andersen contract.