Despite 18 months of problems associated with the software responsible for tracking Ontarians on social assistance, the Ontario government has awarded a two-year $32-million IT contract aimed at servicing the software to the same company that created it. […]
“It should be fixed under warranty,” said Smokey Thomas, the president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, which represents caseworkers who deliver services to social assistance recipients across the province.
“So they hire IBM, and pay them even more money to fix the problems that they created with the system they sold.”
h/t Bob
Anyone know what Ontario is using for money these days? Safe to assume More Debt?
The standard answer – throw more money down the same hole that consumed the first installment. To gamblers, it is called doubling down. No intelligence, just a feeling that the problems can’t last forever so keep going until you reach the cliff.
Kathleen Wynne has taken the Ontario taxpayer over the cliff without a parachute. She really should be required to be tested for mental illness. But then again she was a teacher in the union addled Ontario school system where math questions were about calculating global warming temperatures. Truly incredible!
A government unable to commission the design of a routine computer system, thinks nothing of attempting to control world climate patterns.
Just fill in the failure from any other file here, air ambulance service, snow removal on highways, bridge design in Northern Ont and so on.
So many planners want to affect the big files like “Climate Change”, that mundane tasks are ignored or farmed out to consultants, not edgy enough to attract the attention of Liberal insiders.
Hair of the Dog is a proven folk method for dealing with software issues.
In Ontario we have have disaster unfolding before our eyes and NOBODY can touch the government who are the architects of the whole mess. It’s bad enough to hear and know about let alone live in it. Corruption? What corruption?
The Public Union President “Good Ole Smokey” is concerned about Tax-Payers? W.T.F.
A very simple answer explains this APPARENT insanity, which is actually a standard operating procedure of the Libranos everywhere they govern:
1. OVERpay for a routine service or product, explaining (if ever questioned) that it’s ‘to guaranty taxpayers the best quality.
2. If anything goes wrong, OVERpay again to ‘fix it’.
3. The supplier of these OVERpriced services and products ALWAYS kicks back a portion of the over-payment as political donations to the Libranos.
How do I know this? … back in the day I was Prez of a very good Toronto ad agency, and politically naive. A Liberal bag man named Keith Davey invited me to a swank dinner in an oak-paneled dining room in a very exclusive downtown Toronto club in the vicinity of King St. East and Toronto St. He and his lacky proceeded to buff my ego about “the grrrreat advertising your agency has been doing for X, Y and Z …it’s very VERY good and we REALLY like it ….and we’d like you to do some advertising for (federal) government agencies and departments.” They went on to delicately explain that “we don’t quibble about price” and also they explained that at election time OF COURSE we would also have to chip in with help AND DONATIONS to the party. I enjoyed my dinner, enjoyed the conversation (right out of ‘House of Cards’) but turned them down a few days laer saying our overseas parent company had a policy of no political clients of any kind ever. So … THAT’S how the Liberals do it, and always have.
The skim continues! Re-elected, enough said.
This is business as usual;Good enough for government”
The fix is so they can skim off some more money, there is no enough.
Who are the consultants?
The government appointed experts,paid to “oversee” this contract?
That the software fails to serve the public, probably is so insecure that your data may as well be on Facebook, matter nought to these kleptocrats.
This isn’t unique to the public sector, unfortunately. It’s the sunk cost fallacy writ large.
And then there’s the email debacle at Shared Services Canada.
Initial roll-out found deficient – but they’ll press on regardless.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/federal-email-system-halted-1.3565191
Another bureaucratic pipe-dream.
How much $ did IBM donate to the Liberal Party of Ontario? Just asking.
Why would the CBC care about other people’s money?
when have you ever seen a socialist that cares about wasting other people’s money?
On the good side they didn’t get the software from SAP like SaskPower did.