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Did HP Defraud the Canadian Government?
lightsaber1 writes "In this age of financial scandal in the Canadian Government it's hardly surprising to see that Hewlett-Packard is now being accused of charging the Canadian Department of National Defence for more than $160 million in software, hardware, and labour that was not delivered. The DND is confident it will get the money back, but HP is denying all responsibility, pinning the blame on an error within the DND itself. In all of this it is clear that the Government can lose track of a lot of money easily and even large companies are not above a little fraud now and then."
How the heck the guy didn't have any indication something was already paid I have no clue, but others in the finance department would try to catch as many duplicate checks on the way out as they could. As you might have guessed, the company is long gone.
How is it that the government spent $160-million, got nothing in return and no one noticed?"
It happens and not just in the public sector.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
There are some differences in the Canadian governmental system than American, and buying off our representatives is a bit harder. Not impossible, mind you.
Our Senate is appointed, not elected, so campaign funding on that front isn't really viable. Although out-and-out bribery could still be a possibility.
The Prime Minister is the leader of the party with the most seats in the House of Commons, not a separately elected individual, and therefore controls how the party votes.
The ethics minister (theoretically) is a watchdog to prevent abuses of power or introducing bills based on the needs of special interest.
Add into this that each MP has limited power, based on the fact that their ridings are relatively small compared to US electoral areas (population-wise, I'm sure many of the geographical areas are quite large), and it would take a very concentrated effort to garner enough support through bribery and financing to make a dent.
Of course, this is all from the deep recesses of my high school social science memories, so I could be a bit off.
Who gave the Canadian Department of National Defence $160,000,000?
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Oh please. The Liberal's in Canada are considerably more left than the Republicans in the US. Of course, the Conservative Party here in Canada is also considerably more left than the Republicans in the US. This probably has something to do with less religious fundamentalism in this country.
The real difference between the Liberal's and the Conservatives in Canada is their fiscal, rather than social policies. Socially, they're very close (though, the conservatives are, unsuprisingly, slightly more socially conservative (see same-sex marriage, marijuana laws, etc)). Fiscally, they are comparable to the Dems/Reps in the US, except the Conservatives in Canada want to cut spending along with taxes, rather than just the latter.
As for the rest of it, well, that remains to be seen. There was plenty of corruption in the previous Liberal governments. Will that continue? I don't know. Would it be better with an NDP or Conservative government? I'm not so sure...
For all those of you who are Americans, you should know that the Liberal party is the same as the Republicans
This is Wrong! Former PM Chretien and current PM Martin, both Liberal, were for a bill to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana and i believe Chretien wanted to legalize gay marriage throughout all of canada. These are just some examples, but they are definitely as left wing as, if not more than, the USA Democratic Party.
This is going off-topic but i believe you needed to be corrected on this matter.
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
If HP did receive the payment, but failed to deliver the goods, then isn't it clear who's to blame?
Imagine if your client mistakenly paid your company $2,000 extra, do you
(1) keep quiet?
(2) ask what that $2K is for?
One of my clients has a habit of overpaying the bill, because it is always late in paying, thus when the next invoice (with 2 months balance) arrives, they then paid the 1st invoice, and the 2nd invoice. I have to tell them that, and hold the credit for the following month(s).
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Why the hell do they need that? It's not like anybody hates Canada. I mean, why do you think US citizens put maple leafs on their backpacks when they travel around Europe?
The US - yeah, we need a big defense department the way we go around pissing everybody off. But not Canada. They're like a harmless little mouse.
Canada has MANY parties. The four biggest are the Liberals, Conservatives, Bloq Quebecois, and the NDP. There are many smaller parties as well and many independents run for seats in the house of commons (like the US congress). The Conservatives are the equivalent to US Republicans. The Liberals (although getting more right wing) are the equivalent to the Democrats. The NDP is quite a bit left, but still in the Democratic vein.
Overall though, all the parties in Canada, including the Conservatives are more left wing than anything in the US. We have national medicare, publicly funded universities etc. that even the Conservatives fundamentally believe in. Recently, it's true that the Liberals were involved in a scandal involving many millions of dollars of "favours" to private companies, but even these were more along the lines of fast-track bidding and not all out policy-bribery like is common in the US.
To get back to the original point of the article, with the department of Defence getting shafted by HP, this is likely due to the general incompetence of a few technology people and their managers, not a particular party.
and even large companies are not above a little fraud now and then
Wow, that's alarming.
I thought only the tiny puny mom-n-pop companies like Global Crossing and Enron had fraud problems.
Pappa, what is "business ethics"???
Oh, my son, this is a very important concept. Hmmm, let's see. Suppose a customer left the store and dropped a $20 bill on the floor and did not notice. This is when business ethics comes into play: should you tell your partner or not???
Gov: We want our money back for the stuff you didn't deliver.
HP: It is too late. You waited too long to ask.
Gov: But we didn't have the software and servers to track stuff, and so didn't know fast enough.
HP: Well, why didn't you get such a computer system?
Gov: Because you haven't delivered it yet.
Table-ized A.I.
After 17 years in the DND, I'll bet against the DND in this battle. A Defense WAN ripped off from the Reserves (and then re-implemented incorrectly), Admin Clerks and Truckers in charge of IT resources, zero to none knowledge of networking, an Officer corps that believes sending email means that you are an 'e-business' and a R&D section that wonders why it's so difficult to implement Netbios nationally.
Top that off with a mentality that everything and everything has to run through either an outside consultant or a 10 year contact with a 'Quebec company' (which only means that they have a place in Quebec to send the cheques), and you have a recipe for disaster.
HP 1, DND 0.
-- I care not for your foolish signatures.
Here's the The CBC article about this story, and here's the
Radio-Canada story (in French, of course).
By the way, I'm quite impressed with Radio-Canada's record at scooping its English equivalent. This story was available on src.ca a good few hours before it was on CBC. A good excuse to practise my French.
If Carly Fiorina becomes Martha Stewart's cell mate, can we expect some tasteful lavendar-scented gingham-pattern HP boxes in the near future?
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Nope, I'd suggest you practice your English :-)
:), I'm a Canadian.
Well, as might have been evident from my post
Along with a monarch and a parliamentary system, we inherited mostly British spellings, which includes 'practise' as the verb and 'practice' as the noun.
Similarly, I can license my code under the GNU General Public Licence.