An audit has found fault with both the Ontario Processing
Vegetable Growers Marketing Board and the Ontario Farm Products Marketing
Commission.
Last year the commission dismissed the board’s directors and
took over its operations. Now is it transitioning back to a member-governed
marketing board, but under continuing close commission control because it has
ongoing power to pick the chairman of the board.
The audit, prepared by the Ontario Internal Audit Division
of the Treasury Board Secretariat, found that:
- The
board directors were paid about four times as much as the average Ontario
marketing board member.
- The
general manager was paid $190,000 a year for four-day work weeks. He also got a
company car and an American Express Credit Card and it’s not clear who
benefitted from the credit-card air miles program.
- Directors
sometimes took their spouses on trips: one hotel room cost $900 a night.
- Twelve
directors collected “per diems of $88,000 and $72,000 in associated expenses
which translates to about 315 days of board effort” for 2016 the report says.
- Consultants
were hired, but the auditors “could not ascertain whether the deliverables were
completed and if these were reasonable to justify the monthly cost” of $7,500
for one and $1,000 for another.
- The
board donated $1,000 to the Ontario Liberal Party and $500 to the Progressive
Conservative Party, despite commission advice against political contributions.
The audit says other marketing boards also made political contributions, but
does not name them or the amounts.
- The
board is faulted for failing to have job descriptions, governance policies and
sound management practices.
- The
commission is faulted for inconsistent oversight, for not holding all marketing
boards to the same standards and for simply accepting information it requires
without doing a critical review to determine whether the board was actually
doing a good job.
For example, the report says “oversight of marketing board
effectiveness is measured based on the total number of reviews completed by the
commission, not on what the reviews resulted in (i.e. level of compliance).”
For another example, the audit says “there does not appear to
be any templated forms or analysis that Secretariat staff is required to
complete to identify how marketing boards are meeting expectations, nor is it
apparent that the key outcome of the formal review is on identifying the
above.”
The audit is marked “Confidential Medium Sensitivity”
According to an appendix, it was distributed to only 11
people, including OMAF deputy minister Greg Meredith and a number of senior
OMAFRA officials, Commission chairman Jim Clark and Richard C. Kennedy, chief
internal auditor for assistant deputy minister for the treasury board’s
internal audit division.
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