Toronto fire inspection paper trail so bad, police can’t start fraud probe
National Post
Christie Blatchford
16 July 2018
The City of Toronto’s records in its Facilities Management division,
where fake fire inspectors regularly won contracts to make sure
municipal buildings were safe, are so bad that Toronto Police can’t
even launch a fraud investigation.
Last Friday, city auditor general Beverly Romeo-Beehler, who blew the
whistle on potential wrongdoing by a vendor and gross mismanagement by
the city, told the audit committee that there is “definitely high risk
for fraud” but pointed out that without good records and witnesses, it
would be difficult to prove.
“Can the police prove it?” she asked, rhetorically. “We’ve been in contact with them all along.”
Monday, the National Post confirmed that the documentation kept by
Facilities Management is so poor police can’t even start a probe.
The schmozzle in the department came to light when Romeo-Beehler
received serious allegations about a trio of companies – York Fire
Protection, Advance Fire Control and Advanced Detection Technologies
Corp. – which had been doing business with the city for about a decade.
The same man, Rauf Ahmad, is the “directing mind” behind all three.
long history of poor performance and shoddy work for the city
The allegations included double-billing, overcharging for work not
done, phony double-bidding for city contracts, the company using
multiple false identities (including employees who would change shirts,
now wearing one with a York logo and then one with the Advance Fire
logo, depending on where they were working), shifting company names and
suspect addresses (the headquarters for one of Ahmad’s companies was a
Birchmount Road mosque) and its long history of poor performance and
shoddy work for the city somehow failing to prevent it getting new or
even enriched contracts.
As city councillor Josh Matlow said at the Friday meeting, “…it is
almost like one of those weird Netflix shows where you just can’t
believe this mystery that’s being put together and fake names and fake
dates where companies were started and people coming back with
different shirts – it’s absurd.
“If somebody actually wrote a script like that, they’d probably get laughed out the door – like you couldn’t believe it.
“Yet, it happened,” Matlow said.
“And the fact that this absurdity was then by the City of Toronto
allowed to then turn into a contract where people got tax dollars and
life safety was potentially put at risk, is beyond disbelief.”
The AG passed the original complaint to Josie Scioli, at that time the
chief corporate officer responsible for Facilities Management, for
what’s called a “first line assessment” about whether there was any
merit to the allegations.
Scioli and senior officials concluded there was no support for the
allegations, and told Romeo-Beehler “no invoices were paid unless an
inspection report is provided by York and matched with their invoice.”
This is known as a three-way matching process.
In fact, the AG found, the inspection report audit trail “is missing”.
As she told the committee, “Invoicing was an absolute mess.”
While this would raise a red flag in any municipal department because
of the potential for fraud, with “life safety systems” – it means fire
and smoke alarms, fire extinguishers, sprinklers and emergency lighting
– it also raises the potential for loss of life, and thus is critically
important.
Only a documented inspection trail – that, for instance, the fire
alarms in any given building were properly inspected and tested at the
necessary intervals mandated by the Fire Code – demonstrates that the
building is actually safe.
The AG and the forensic accountants she hired to help her could find
full or partial documentation for only 52% of the invoices they sampled.
signatures for both vendor and city officials, were cut and pasted
The reports that existed – some whole reports were missing – were
inaccurate and on some, signatures for both vendor and city officials,
were cut and pasted.
Shockingly, by February this year, by which time Scioli was a Deputy
City Manager, Deputy Fire Chief Jim Jessop, who was working with
Romeo-Beehler on the investigation and being stalled on getting the
documents he needed, urged Scioli in writing to notify the AG “of this
potential wrongdoing.” Jessop offered to tell her himself if Scioli
preferred.
The AG was never told. She learned of Jessop’s recommendation only by the by, as her investigation was wrapping up.
And when she asked to meet with Facilities Management managers this
spring, senior management first sent them a reminder, before the
meeting, that the department follows the three-way matching process –
in other words, witnesses, remember your damn lines!
And there, last Friday, was the same Josie Scioli, testifying before
the audit committee, issuing the same sort of preposterous pap she and
the senior managers had been feeding the AG all along.
“Your buildings are safe,” she told the committee, “but the documentation is not what it should be.”
Even now, Scioli et al do not get it: You cannot say a building is safe
where the inspection trail is non-existent or deeply flawed. Both
Romeo-Beehler and Jessop were forced to contradict her.
Astonishingly, the committee is now asking city council to give Scioli
as much as $650,000 to hire a third-party vendor to conduct a fire and
life safety audit of city facilities.
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