By: Mark Parton MLA
The Canberra Liberals have told the ACT Labor Government that the recent DHR Link announcement does not close the Digital Health Record story. The former Auditor-General has warned that the contract findings, serious as they are, are not the worst of it.
The Canberra Liberals welcomed more GPs getting access to ACT public health records. At the same time, they pointed to the Auditor-General’s report on the NTT DATA Business Solutions (NTT) contracts behind DHR: invoices paid without work orders, more than $16 million in consumption payments without reasonable assurance the Territory got what it paid for, and a deed that grew from $66 million to $110 million.
The Public Accounts and Administration Committee has already said that failure could point to a wider pattern of mismanagement across the DHR project. The former Auditor-General has gone further. He said the more important issues are the governance of the overall project, how it was put together, and the information provided to Cabinet, and that more significant findings are still to come.
Canberra Liberals Leader, Mark Parton said Canberrans are entitled to ask the obvious question, what else is this government hiding?
“Labor spent the day spruiking a slow expansion and said nothing about the contracts,” Mr Parton said.
“The question now is whether ministers were given a true picture of a blowout that almost doubled.”
Cabinet is only as good as the advice it receives. The Government should table when Cabinet was told the NTT deed had grown to $110 million, whether claimed savings were increased as costs rose, and when the further work on DHR governance will be made public.
This is not an argument against DHR Link. It is an argument against a government that wants credit for the rollout and silence on whether Cabinet was told the truth.
Link to Inquiry into Auditor-General Reports