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ISC Bureaucrats jet-setting on taxpayer dime

Author: David Maclean 2002/12/08
REGINA: Information acquired by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) reveals that provincial bureaucrats working for crown-owned Information Services Corporation (ISC) spent 2001 jet-setting around the planet on taxpayer dime.

Destinations included Albania, Australia, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Ukraine, Washington and Frankfurt, Germany. The purpose of the travel was to drum up business for the disastrous Land Registry System, which has been plagued by cost overruns and countless complaints from users.

Total out-of-province travel costs in 2001 came to $172,000, with in-province travel totaling an additional $171,000. Among the most bizarre trips taken by ISC officials was to Albania, an impoverished nation of 3 million where only two per cent of the population have telephones.

"ISC travel costs are emblematic of what's wrong with crown corporations in this province," said CTF director David MacLean. "No business plan, no accountability, and no results for taxpayers."

"What could ISC hope to gain from a trip to Albania " asked MacLean. "They're selling a web-based land registry system to a nation where, according to the CIA, phone lines were cut down by villagers for fencing material after the fall of communism. They should spend more time fixing the system and getting costs under control, and less time in Hong Kong and Orlando."

"This registry system has proven to be a dud in Saskatchewan, with absurd wait times, soaring costs and a rash of computer glitches," said MacLean. "Despite this dismal record, ISC employees are travelling the world trying to sell it."

ISC is Saskatchewan's newest crown corporation. Their mandate is to modernize Saskatchewan's paper-based land registry system. International travel by ISC is reportedly conducted in an effort to sell the system abroad. ISC recently brought in a new CEO to help turn the troubled crown around.

"Taxpayers should never have been dragged in to this mess in the first place," said MacLean. "ISC needs to be held accountable for business decisions."

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