Sask. Highway Patrol bought weapons, equipment it can’t use, misused purchasing cards to do it

The provincial auditor thinks the Ministry of Highways needs to keep a better on eye on how the Highway Patrol is buying things — and what employees are buying — after an investigation found misuse of purchasing cards, and weapons and equipment bought that the patrol technically shouldn’t have.

The audit ended more than a year ago, at the end of March 2019.

The auditor’s team looked into purchasing under the Saskatchewan Highway Patrol after the ministry did its own investigation, hiring consultants and eventually firing an employee.

The report found the ministry needs to do more to oversee gun and ammunition purchases. It points out the Highway Patrol is subject to the Municipal Police Equipment Regulations, 1991 and under that, there are specific guns it is allowed to use unless special permission is given by a police chief.

The team found the Highway Patrol had guns and equipment not on the approved list including three 9-millimetre pistols, two fully automatic rifles, one AR-10 carbine and 12 silencers.

The report notes the ministry said the Highway Patrol was allowed to have those weapons for training purposes.

The patrol also has a shotgun even though specific direction was given to not buy shotguns.

The report also listed other questionable purchases like certain other guns and ammo, silencers, drug test kits, a drone, and a high-powered rifle scope.

The auditor also wants the ministry to do a better job of keeping track of that equipment.

At the time of the audit, a spreadsheet and sign-out sheets were used to keep track of who had what, and one verification project found several instances where those sheets were wrong.

The ministry eventually tracked everything down except for some communications equipment worth $6,000, which it eventually determined it had never actually received from the manufacturer.

The auditor said the Ministry of Highways also needs to do a better job in monitoring purchasing cards and making sure they’re being properly used.

The cards have a $10,000 limit, but there are also ministry purchasing rules that anything over $2,500 needs three written quotes and anything over $10,000 needs to be put out for public tender.

When the audit team tested nearly three dozen purchases, they found several that didn’t follow these rules. Some employees were splitting up one transaction into many to avoid the limits and purchasing rules.

The report gave examples of an order for bulletproof vests totalling about $10,000 which was split onto three different employees’ purchasing cards. In another instance, three different invoices from the same supplier on the same day were found for Highway Patrol equipment and belt systems totalling more than $19,000.

The report also notes that in 26 of 34 transactions, it looked like the person’s direct supervisor wasn’t the one to approve the transaction, as it’s supposed to be.

The auditor made three recommendations to fix these problems:

1. “The Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure increase its monitoring of compliance with established transaction limits for purchases made using purchase cards”
2. “The Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure implement policies to better oversee purchases of regulated firearms and ammunition to ensure they support its business needs”
3. “The Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure implement better processes to track regulated highway patrol equipment.”