Why do government IT contracts have such huge cost overruns?

It’s not just ArriveCan and Phoenix. Half of outsourced tech work went over the original budget, data shows

3 Oct 2023 • 6 min read

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Public servants protest over problems with the Phoenix pay system outside the Office of the Prime Minister in 2017. The troubled system, which was supposed to save the government millions of dollars by centralizing payroll, ended up costing more than $1 billion. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)

Roberto Rocha

Roberto is an award-winning journalist who specializes in computational methods for investigations. Before joining the IJF, he was a data journalist at CBC News and the Montreal Gazette.

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Why do government IT contracts have such huge cost overruns?

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