Review of COVID-19 spending will continue, AG says 

Auditor General Darren Noonan says he will proceed with the second and third phases of his review of the P.E.I. government's COVID-19 spending, even though he remains convinced he won't uncover any new details.

Noonan said the review of the COVID-19 spending has meant he's had to defer a number of other investigations, including an audit of Health PEI's wait times and a review of the Island's environmental goals and benchmarks — to see whether they are realistic and can be met.  

But Noonan said following meetings with the public accounts committee and executive council, he decided to proceed with the COVID-19 review.

"We concluded that it's a lot of money that was spent on different programs that did affect taxpayers, so we did feel it was important to disclose the spending with as much detail as possible … that's why we did agree to do it," Noonan said.

"The downfall is that it's kind of set back our office's work plan by 12 to 18 months."     

In late July, the auditor general released Phase 1 of a review of the programs the province initiated in response to the pandemic.

The report identified 21 programs supporting individuals, businesses and organizations. The programs had a total budget of $52 million.

The report found the province obtained appropriate authorizations for its COVID-19 programs, but weaknesses were found. Those weaknesses included funding being provided even though the applicant did not meet all the eligibility criteria, errors in payment calculations and treasury board approvals not always being obtained when budgets were exceeded.  

In August, Noonan wrote Premier Dennis King raising concerns about Phase 2 and Phase 3 of the audit, because of the time it was taking and its impact on other audits.

In the letter, Noonan wrote: "We are considering if the additional audit work required to complete Phase 2 and 3 will result in any significant additional recommendations."

Premier Dennis King said when he asked the auditor general to take a look at the spending, he wanted to make sure there was public confidence in what his government was doing and how they were doing it. He said he's pleased to hear the auditor general will continue to review the spending, which continues to roll out for some programs.

"I just think the people of Prince Edward Island, the taxpayers of Prince Edward Island, need to know that that money is being spent in the right places, and there's adequate performance evaluation taking place as we spend it," King said in an interview outside the P.E.I. legislature. 

"I just encourage the auditor general to keep up his work until such time as we can say COVID is complete."    

Hannah Bell, Green MLA for Charlottetown-Belvedere and the chair of the public accounts committee, said "we recognize, obviously, it is absolutely extra work, but it's work that the people of P.E.I. need to see happening.