NDP MP Malcolm Allen (Welland, Ont.), along with other opposition MPs, has prevented a motion to halt Public Accounts Committee hearings into the $25-billion F-35 acquisition from being passed after Conservative MP Andrew Saxton (Vancouver North, B.C.) proposed the motion more than three weeks ago and sent the inquiry into in camera sessions.
Mr. Allen, following an in camera meeting on Tuesday, said although one more meeting is scheduled prior to the House of Commons summer recess later this week, it’s unlikely the government will be able to pass its closure motion before the adjournment.
“I don’t have any time frame. What I want to do is talk to additional witnesses,” Mr. Allen told The Hill Times. “What I want to do is talk to a certain number of witnesses who they refuse to talk to.”
Among other National Defence and Public Works Department officials who have not been questioned during the inquiry into Auditor General Michael Ferguson’s charged spring report on the F-35 acquisition, which Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary-Southwest, Alta.) has since put on hold, Mr. Allen mentioned the name of a senior official in DND’s F-35 procurement office, one of several project managers the government refused to produce as witnesses when testimony began on May 1.
“I’m not just pulling people out of the air,” Mr. Allen said, adding also that he believes Alan Williams, a former assistant deputy minister at National Defence who was in charge of procurement as the F-35 plan was being developed, should also testify.
Opposition MPs were frustrated at the government’s attempt to end the hearings after only seven hours of witness testimony, which resulted in a stalemate as National Defence deputy minister Robert Fonberg contradicted the auditor general over facts in his report. They were angrier still after Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose (Sherwood Park, Alta.) confirmed an independent review of F-35 cost differences between National Defence and Mr. Ferguson’s report will be denied access to key cost estimates from the U.S.
Although outside experts to be hired by the Treasury Board secretariat will have access to the latest National Defence cost estimates, they will not be able to see the data on which the estimates are based—cost assumptions and forecasts that were provided to National Defence in May by the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program Office in Washington, Va.
“It is true that the costing figures are available from the Joint Strike Fighter Program in the United States, but what we have said is that we want those figures, that would be cost estimates from the Department of National Defence, to be independently validated,” Ms. Ambrose told the House of Commons during Question Period.
Liberal MP John McKay (Scarborough-Guildwood, Ont.) told The Hill Times the government has stacked the recovery plan, centred on a new secretariat in the Public Works Department, by putting the same three deputy ministers who have managed the F-35 project for the past six years in charge.
The government has also added Mr. Harper’s national security adviser from the Privy Council Office along with bureaucrats from the Finance Department and Treasury Board, and named a former auditor general as one of two outside experts to oversee the secretariat.
The expert review being contracted by Treasury Board is a separate element, but it will have the most influential role in determining whether Mr. Ferguson’s allegations about hidden costs are correct.
“The whole thing doesn’t make any sense,” Mr. McKay said. “It never made any sense in the beginning and it’s unraveling as we speak.”
Mr. Allen, who said Mr. Fonberg misled the committee during his testimony, said he wants the Public Accounts Committee to investigate the administration of the new secretariat when the Commons reconvenes in September.
“How do you verify numbers that you can’t look at? Are we going to have competing numbers now?” Mr. Allen said. “Is DND now going to say, ‘Well I don’t know where they got their numbers, because they didn’t get them from us?’”
Mr. Allen said there are many questions to be asked. “Whose numbers are accurate?” he said. “Are DND’s accurate? Is this new committee, not even up and running yet that was supposed to report next month and give us its first set of figures? These are questions that this committee should be asking, and I’ve actually said we should ask.”
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Tim Naumetz
No comments:
Post a Comment