EDMONTON — New documents released by the Wildrose party show that Alberta Health Services ran roughshod over its own policy to hand out almost a billion dollars in sole-sourced contracts.
The money includes everything from executive coaching to yoga classes, paper shredding, aquarium maintenance, and Coca-Cola.
Wildrose critic Heather Forsyth notes that the AHS policy manual dictates big contracts must be put out to tender except for extraordinary reasons.
Forsyth notes that 98 per cent of the contracts handed out over a two-year period ending in January 2013 were sole-sourced when they should have been tendered.
Wildrsoe finance critic Rob Anderson says taxpayers will never know how much money could have been saved by having firms compete for the contracts.
Last week, the Wildrose noted that AHS spent more than $250 million in consultants over an 18-month period.