‘Ottawa’ Critic Calls for Investigation After Pan Am Audit
A Progressive Conservative MPP is asking Ontario’s privacy commissioner to investigate record-keeping procedures at the Pan Am Games organizing committee after an audit report showed some hard drives and other documents were not turned over when requested.
MPP Steve Clark (Leeds-Grenville), the Progressive Conservative critic for tourism, culture and sports, wrote to Ontario’s privacy commissioner Brian Beamish to make a formal complaint and ask for the investigation.
In a report released on Wednesday, Ontario’s auditor general revealed the games’ organizing committee did not hand over all the computer hard drives investigators requested at the outset of the audit, including that of CEO Saad Rafi. Of the 12 hard drives requested, TO2015 handed over only three to the auditors, Bonnie Lysyk told reporters.
“This is completely unacceptable behaviour by public officials with responsibility for Games with a budget of more than $2.5 billion,” Clark wrote.
A consultants’ report explaining the logic behind paying out bonuses was also unavailable, Lysyk told Torstar News Service in an interview.
Speaking in Question Period on Thursday, Clark referenced the gas plants scandal and an OPP investigation into the alleged destruction of key documents related to a cancelled electricity contract.
“Each time the police come calling, the premier claims she’s changed her ways. Yet when the auditor general asked to examine hard drives at TO2015, they had vanished,” he said in the house.
torstar news service
Pan Am Games chief Saad Rafi was present at a mascot race between Canoose the Goose and Pachi on April 30, 2014.
Clark also called for the dismissal of Rafi from his current role as CEO of the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan.
“Will you fire Saad Rafi before more documents are delated and ORPP becomes this province’s next scandal?” Clark said in the house.
Fifty-three senior staff were paid $5.3 million in bonuses at the end of games for finishing out the entire length of their contracts and meeting budget targets. Those payments come in addition to annual performance bonuses of $10.5 million.
In an interview, Lysyk said the probability that something was missed is low, but yet the absence of some information warranted mention.
In an emailed statement, Rafi said TO2015 took record retention “very seriously” all relevant files were stored in the shared servers, along with emails.