Treasurer Kevin Foley has used four year old Information and Communication Technology (ICT) spending figures to try to justify his claim of $30 million in annual savings.
Ms Angela Allison, Director of Corporate Services, Department of Trade and Economic Development (DTED) last week told the Legislative Council Budget and Finance Committee that Mr Foley had used ICT spending figures for 2003/2004 to justify his claim of $30 million in annual savings.
Ms Allison: That is the way the Future ICT savings were calculated, they used 2003/2004 baseline figures.
Hon RI Lucas: That makes no sense. I do not ask you to comment but let me say, as a former Treasurer that it makes no sense. Did you not have figures more recently available that you could provide?
Ms Allison: We do, but Treasury are working from 2003/2004 for whole of Government.
Liberal Member of the Legislative Council Rob Lucas said that Ms Allison went on to explain that by using the old figures, Treasury significantly overestimated the real level of savings for the DTED being achieved by the Rann Government’s ‘Future ICT’ process.
“Ms Allison stated that Treasury’s claimed savings of $800,000 per annum was approximately double their expected level of claimed savings! As a result, the DTED would now have to slow down the replacement programme for computers within the Department,” Mr Lucas said.
“Ms Allison confirmed that they had ‘sought clarification of how they determined the number so that we could understand what had happened.’
“This evidence further backs information provided by a highly placed whistleblower who has provided embarrassing details of the lengths the Rann Government is going to prevent the truth getting out on their claimed $30 million in annual savings.
“Mr Foley first claimed the ‘Future ICT’ savings would be $30 million per annum in his election costings document in February 2006 and ever since then, Treasury has been trying to construct a set of ‘savings’ figures to back the Treasurer’s claim.
“It is now clear the only way this could be achieved is by using four year old figures to try to back the claim!”