Passport to corruption: Hundreds of millions in DFAT contracts were rotten from the start

The auditor-identical old has, in the face of extraordinary resistance from the Division of Foreign Affairs and Replace (DFAT), printed broad and serious misconduct within the Australian Passport Office (APO), with 18 personnel and old body of workers below investigation for unethical behavior over contracts, costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of bucks.

The bombshell audit used to be initiated after the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) concluded there used to be something rotten going on in the APO during a routine evaluate printed early this year. It then realized that the Commonwealth Procurement Principles, which govern how taxpayers’ cash is spent by authorities agencies, had been systematically trashed by body of workers within the APO between 2019 and mid-2023.

The ANAO findings about how the procurement principles were damaged speed into the scores, from pretty minor (now not enough detail in reviews filed on the authorities gentle location Austender) thru to the gobsmacking.

Amongst the most spectacular:

• Literally no procurement by the APO in these four years — none — used to be aggressive. In fact, now not up to a third were now not sham gentle processes where office body of workers already knew who they would contract with and were sincere going thru the motions.
• Tenders assessed as “low threat” ended up costing up to seven times the forecast charges; in one case a contract rate ten times its initial estimate. Other contracts were prolonged with out factual processes, pushing charges up by over 1,000%; in one case a contract ended up increasing in rate by over 1,800% by arrangement of extensions, costing hundreds of millions. In fact, the APO spent four times as great simply varying and extending existing contracts than getting original contracts.
• Adding companies to panels of most in vogue contract suppliers with out a course of (and with the company often pointing out it wasn’t on the panel).
• Repeated misleading claims that contracts had been assign to open competition.
• An official who approached a mate in Deloitte over coffee about a contract — with the resulting contract documents falsified to claim it used to be an “unsolicited proposal” from Deloitte. The rate would blow out 1,000% to over $3.5 million.
• Documents faked to claim quotes had been got from Indigenous companies.
• A contract worth over $850,000 used to be handed out in keeping with “internal solutions and observe of mouth”; another worth over $800,000 used to be given to the incumbent regardless of their failure to safe a delicate in on time.
• The contractor who managed the APO’s procurement crew had his contain contract prolonged often for 10 years, and initiated an extension by emailing a subordinate (who used to be also a contractor) giving them the puny print of how he wanted his contract prolonged again. The APO then lied and claimed the contract had resulted from an open gentle course of.
• Most smartly-most in vogue contractors were given inside information on how to win tenders, and gentle panels simply went thru the motions in consequence of their chairs had already determined to hand the gentle to an incumbent: “The department had already identified its most in vogue dealer or candidate prior to approaching the market for 52 contracts totalling $305.5 million, which equates to 71% of the 73 APO contracts examined by number or 75% by rate.”
• End to-routine failure to pronounce or arrange conflicts of interest, often of principal conflicts like old workers of tenderers chairing gentle determination panels.
• Four officers took now not one however two junkets to Port Douglas to scope a conference venue, at a rate of over $30,000, finest to glide the conference to Canberra, blowing the $100,000 given to the Port Douglas venue (“the procurement of a resort in Port Douglas did now not follow the necessities of the DFAT procurement policy and did now not symbolize rate for cash”).

As a outcome, “18 individuals, comprising every workers and contractors, are ‘individuals of interest’ (meaning they were being investigated or being thought of for investigation or referral).” Nonetheless that used to be now not sooner than DFAT tried to ignore the verbalize. “The ANAO first raised concerns regarding integrity and moral matters that had been identified during the audit with DFAT in April 2024. DFAT initially advised the ANAO that it did now not contain satisfactory investigatory assets to examine the matters identified.” It used to be finest after the ANAO unearthed extra grime that DFAT started investigating itself.

Worse, DFAT actively resisted providing ANAO with information, leading to an extraordinary and uncommon clash between the auditor-identical old and a essential department. In October 2023, ANAO asked DFAT to provide some emails, finest for DFAT to refuse to hand them over. So the ANAO used its compulsory information-gathering powers below the Auditor-General Act and slapped DFAT with an tell to obtain. DFAT used to be compelled to give up the emails by December.

You might well speed, however you will’t camouflage from the auditor-identical old.