Thread by @StephenPunwasi

Toronto recently recovered $28 million from anti-corruption investigations.

So many files that the auditor general herself needs to help investigate.

Why aren’t we hearing about charges? 🧐

#LetsFixIt #topoli

stephenpunwasi.com/campaign/platf…

2/ The auditor general’s recoveries and reduction in future crimes makes this area revenue positive.

Is Toronto’s leadership intentionally underfunding an anti-corruption effort that makes taxpayers money or do they have no clue?

Either way, not a great look.

3/ Remember, corruption costs you money. A LOT.

How much of your tax dollars are going to criminals & special interests?

How much better would public schools, public transit, social housing, and investments in the city be, if we weren’t lining the pockets of criminals?

https://twitter.com/StephenPunwasi/status/1565336852344610817

4/ Our plan doesn’t just involve allocating more resources to the auditor general based on recoveries, but a system to prevent it.

Here’s a sneak peak:

𝗕𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 - 🇨🇦 has no clue who owns anything. Seriously, not even collected.

5/ Who’s behind the application of a real estate permit?

Did that sole-sourced contract that was strangely specific go to a related party of the person issuing it?

Who owns that vacant home that’s been empty for a decade?

Toronto has no clue & doesn’t want to know. #LetsFixIt

6/ 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘀 & 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗽𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗠𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 - currently a city run agency like the TTC, or a city-owned crown corp doesn’t have to report corruption to the auditor general.

We have no idea if they handle it.

This is easy - make reporting mandatory.

7/ 𝗘𝘅𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁𝘀 - if you ordered a hamburger that was $10 on the menu, and got a bill for $120 — you would ask questions.

Was there a mistake, did I order $110 pickles?

Are you just getting screwed?

This is called an exit audit, and we don’t do them.

8/ Our plan will make these available for the public to analyze & compare, so we have an idea if there’s a specific issue or we’re getting screwed.

Mistakes & delays happen.

Quebec’s anti-corruption inquiry proved they also sometimes intentionally happen to bill you more.

9/ We don’t want to just solve this for Toronto, but we’ll build software to monitor it in our plan to build an Open Source City.

We’ll co-develop tools to crack down on corruption & share the code with all cities. It’s not good enough to end it in TO, we need to end it in 🇨🇦.

10/ We’ll make it happen.

We have some great allies like mayor @BradWestPoCo ready to work with us on an anti-corruption plan for their cities.

But the more support we get, the faster it happens. Tell your friends, and share the platform.

stephenpunwasi.com/campaign/platf…

Still here? Okay, let’s talk corruption.

Here’s a fraud investigation where a Toronto Business Improvement Area (BIA) board followed a small fraudulent check that led to finding $72k.

That’s the equivalent of 14 years of property taxes for an average homeowner.

a retired City of Toronto employee’s identity was stolen and used to sign contracts with two private energy resellers.

The City had $250,000 looted from it.

That’s half the size of the funding lost at @SistemaToronto, an arts program for kids in low income neighbourhoods.

63% of private contractors planting trees were at different gps locations than the work they claimed.

Estimated loss: $2.9m

Could have paid for:

- 104,000 meals for seniors cut from @EYMealsOnWheels

- 17,000 childcare subsidies

- @torontolibrary hour cuts

Twice.

One of the City’s contractors was caught fraudulently invoicing other clients.

The courts ordered them to repay millions.

Did the City even check if they were over billed? Because even the company was unaware of what was happening with their subcontractors apparently.

Toronto alleges it was over billed $2.5 million by ONE contractor for road paving.

That’s the equivalent of more than half the $4.5m cut from @TOPublicHealth.

LTC safety, overdose prevention, daycare safety, outbreak…

What process is in place to prevent it next time? None. 🤷‍♂️