The federal auditor says millions of doses of COVID vaccine expired before they could be used.
Karen Horgan released a couple of reports about the federal government vaccine rollout and COVID payments to individuals and businesses.
She says better tracking technology could have prevent vaccine doses from expiring.
“They could have had a better system in place earlier,” says Horgan.
“If they had implemented all the functionalities of Vaccine Connect, that could have identified supply needs and when vaccines were likely to expire and move them around move effectively, which would have minimized potential wastage.”
Horgan estimates more than 13 million doses expired along with another 10 million doses since the end of May.
She adds while the government’s action was swift, over $15 billion in the wage subsidy program needs to be investigated further.
“What we found that even though the program kept getting extended for the wage subsidy, there was no addition of pre-payment controls, which would have minimized the need for rather lengthy and complex post-payment work related to businesses.”
Horgan says there were also $4.6 billion in overpayments to individuals because of a lack of verification.
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