Brazilian Workers Involved in Federal COVID Loan Program, Crown Corporation Confirms

The logo of Irish services and consulting company Accenture at an temporary office during the World Economic Forum 2022 (WEF) in the Alpine resort of Davos, Switzerland, on May 25, 2022. (Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters)

The crown corporation responsible for overseeing the federal COVID-19 business loan program has confirmed that a third of subcontracted employees involved are working from Brazil.

Export Development Canada (EDC) was tasked by the government to set up the Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) loan program to support businesses during COVID-19 restrictions.

Being out of capacity, it offered a $208 million sole-source contract to Irish multinational consulting firm Accenture.

Now EDC has confirmed that 46 personnel working on CEBA are not based in Canada, but rather in Brazil.

Sen. Don Plett had obtained partial information that some of the work by an Accenture subsidiary was being done in that country in October 2023, and the matter was reported on by The Globe and Mail in December and on Jan. 5.

EDC spokesperson Shelley MacLean told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement that the Brazilian team works for Accenture subsidiary One Financial and is involved in the “configuration of the supporting loan accounting system.”

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Mr. Plett said back in October that the response he had received from the government to his question on the Accenture contract called the loan accounting system “one of the most critical parts of the CEBA program.”

“The contracts for this system are worth $23 million. They were never disclosed, and we still don’t know how much of this work is being done in Brazil by an Accenture subsidiary,” said Mr. Plett.

The loan accounting system is expected to come online this spring. It will enable the sharing of information between financial institutions and the Canada Revenue Agency to collect payments on loans, reported The Globe and Mail.

Along with the Brazilian workers, a team of 105 people in Canada and three in the United States is working on the front-line delivery of the programme, Ms. MacLean said.

“Only the delivery teams at EDC and Accenture handle the data of Canadian small businesses,” she added.

Information previously provided by EDC indicated that 15 of its own staff were involved in managing CEBA.

The program delivered close to $50 billion in loans to 898,271 businesses, according to information tabled in the House of Commons by EDC on Nov. 1.

As of Aug. 31, 176,353 businesses had repaid in full their CEBA loan, said Liberal MP Maninder Sidhu in the House of Commons on Dec. 12.

Mr. Sidhu, who serves as parliamentary secretary to the minister of Export Promotion, International Trade and Economic Development, added that over $38 billion has yet to be repaid.

Business groups and politicians have pressed the government to further extend the repayment deadline. Businesses that repay the outstanding amount before Jan. 18 can benefit from a partial loan forgiveness.

Provincial premiers wrote to the prime minister in October to ask for an extension.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.