Difficulty in learning the pay system causes the breakdown, federal gov’t says.

According to the federal government, the reasons for current problems with public service pay system are the backlog of files and new users’ difficulty to learn. Launched in February, the Phoenix system which is designed by IBM has met issues from the start it was implemented and it’s getting worse for the past few months. There are underpaid, others are overpaid and unfortunately some didn’t receive any.

In addition, in some cases health benefits have been affected as well, while student loans and mortgage payments were defaulted to some government employees because of the bureaucratic breakdown. The federal government states that there are two primary reasons for the problems experienced. The first reason is the backlog of 40 thousand case files that were already in the system before Phoenix. Meanwhile, the other problem is that people took much time to learn and get used to the system in contrary to what is expected.

On the other hand, to try reclaiming the money and resuming the paying, 13 individual unions are bringing Ottawa to federal court. The federal government reiterates that majority of the employees are getting payment every day and most of the issues are about additional and overtime payment. It is estimated that 80 thousand have experienced issues with the Phoenix. Furthermore, 720 reported that they had not been paid even a penny. The federal government assured that those cases are the priority and the issue is now addressed.