Feds paid $190,000 in late-fees to telecoms: documents

The federal government spent at least $190,600 on late-payment fees and interest charges to telecom companies since September 2016, according to documents tabled recently in Parliament. The bulk of the payments went to BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc., who made at least $103,721 and $42,796 respectively from the period covering September 1, 2016 to June 12, 2018. Telus Corp. made at least $14,838, while $29,253 went to “other cellular or cable providers.” The bulk of the payments came from Shared Services Canada, which manages telecommunications for 42 government departments. It paid out just over $142,000, followed by CBC/Radio Canada, which recorded total payments of $19,486. Via Rail paid $7,754. Shared Services Canada didn't respond to questions about the late payments by deadline. The papers, which broke down the costs into monthly totals by the various government departments, agencies and crown corporations, were compiled through the parliamentary returns process to answer a research question posed by Conservative MP Bev Shipley. Shipley told the Wire Report he is still reviewing the documents but he intends to ask the Liberal government about why there are so many late payments, and why they’re substantially higher for some agencies and crown corporations. “To me, it’s not really about who’s in government, it’s really about what can we do to fix it because these things all get paid by ... the taxpayers. It’s really about building efficiencies,” he said. “This is just one of those small things that should be easy to fix … I’m not looking to blast anybody, I’m just looking to how can we better run government.” The question wasn’t fully answered by all departments and agencies – meaning the costs are not exact and are likely more than the total reported. Canada Post outright refused to reply, stating that information on late payments is “financial in nature and has always been treated as confidential.” A number of agencies and departments, including Justice Canada and the Canada Lands Company, said it would not be possible to collect the information in the timeframe they were given to respond. The Royal Canadian Mint’s document said information for some months is “not available due to time constraints and archiving.” Immigration Canada wrote that its “process” to calculate interest on late payments was only started in June 2017, “hence no amount to disclose prior that date.” Its response noted that its financial system is “unable at this point to track late payment charges and interest charges” on government acquisition cards. The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority said of its nearly $3,000 in late-fees that it recorded under “other cellular or cable providers,” a “significant portion” was actually interest owed to federal government accounts “due to an issue with timing of payments being applied to CATSA accounts.” “This issue has since been resolved,” it said. When asked about the issue, a CATSA spokesperson said the late payment fees for telephone services were incurred “due to timing as to when applied our payments to our account.” A number of other departments and agencies, including the CRTC, noted they had no late payments at all during that time frame. Others had reported payments of small or marginal amounts, such as the Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat, which only paid out $0.30 to Bell, and Statistics Canada, which paid out a total of $0.11 to Rogers. — With reporting by Kyle Duggan at kduggan@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Feds paid $190,000 in late-fees to telecoms: documents

News | September 21, 2018

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Feds paid $190,000 in late-fees to telecoms: documents

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