Toronto auditors found staff did not always follow procurement policy and kept incomplete records on the PayIt payments contract
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What happened
Toronto's Auditor General reported in October 2024 that in awarding an unsolicited-proposal contract to payments platform PayIt, management initially recommended a non-competitive contract despite a policy requiring a Swiss Challenge, internal concerns were not fully addressed, and records supporting key decisions were incompletely retained; the Swiss Challenge was then generally conducted per procedure. Estimated fees paid to PayIt were about $8.4 million as of July 2024. A April 2026 investigation found City staff and then-senior management did not always follow City policies, processes and by-laws, that a Senior Corporate Buyer removed detailed scoring breakdowns from the proposal call with conflicting and insufficient evidence about who approved it, and that some officials used personal email for City business. The Auditor General concluded these did not meet the by-law threshold of 'wrongdoing'.
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- Toronto Auditor General's Office — Toronto Auditor General's OfficeDocument
Management initially recommended entering into a contract with PayIt though a non-competitive procurement, despite the policy requirement that a Swiss Challenge be conducted.
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Response
Contacted and responded — exact wording not on record.
What happened next (0)
No outcome recorded yet.