NDIA Vendor Relations Referred to the Anti Corruption Commission

Thanks to Alex Freeman (name shared with permission) for the tip from the original journalist's article in The Saturday Paper, as summarised in $228M Blown on Customizing Salesforce.

Also, note a previous reaction to that article from one of our readers: CEO Feedback on Salesforce Blowouts.

So, according to this media release from Parliament Australia, the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit has referred the NDIA's vendor relationships in the matter to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC).

Apart from the NACC referral, the main new bit of information in the report is the failure of key NDIA staff to declare over 100 instances of hospitality and gifts from Salesforce, despite agency policy prohibiting such behaviour. Gifts included meals, drinks, golf outings, and more, provided both before and after awarding the Salesforce contract.

The report focuses on the vendor, highlighting gaps in procedure, policy, and so on.

Little or no attention is paid to the individuals in the NDIA who broke the existing rules.

In this case, the vendor is Salesforce, but according to the Australian Computer Society's Information Age, the inquiry also recommends investigations into other similar organisations, calling out SAP, Dell, and Oracle, among others.

But unless Salesforce (or any of the other vendors) has done something illegal, which I doubt, they’re just acting in the best interests of their shareholders. As a listed entity, this is their legal obligation.

The elephant in the room, though, is that key officials at the NDIA have objectively NOT acted in the interest of the taxpayer, and this is reprehensible.

This is not a problem with procedure; it's a compliance issue and should result in the rolling of actual heads—specifically the individuals who broke the rules, not their managers.

I guess it's good that something's happening, though the efficacy of the NACC itself has been called into question in the press too.

I guess I won't hold my breath for those dismissals.

Andrew Walker
Technology consulting for charities
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-walker-the-impatient-futurist/

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