Oversight needed as more Sask. government IT projects delayed and overbudget

The Saskatchewan Legislative Building can be seen in this file photo. (David Prisciak/CTV News)

An audit of the Ministry of SaskBuilds has revealed ongoing gaps in how the Government of Saskatchewan monitors IT projects.

Provincial Auditor Tara Clemett wrote in her report, released Tuesday, that the ministry has “generally effective” processes of monitoring IT projects, improvements are needed to “strengthen oversight” and “support timely intervention.”

The report found that SaskBuilds lacks formal reporting requirements such as offering a percentage of projects on time and on budget, scope changes, summaries of major risks and issues across projects, and performance targets for large scale projects.

“Without clear expectations on what to report and when, decision makers may lack data to fully assess project health or overall success, increasing the risk of overruns and delays,” Clemett wrote in the report.

Between April 2024 and March of 2025, the ministry monitored 20 IT projects with a forecasted cost of $40 million. According to the auditor, eight of the projects ended up overbudget while the remaining 12 were delivered late.

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The report also found that one client spent more than $4 million before cancelling the project outright due to the vendors’ inability to meet the clients’ requirements.

Clemett identified the Enterprise Business Modernization Project (EBMP) as a specific example.

The EBMP is a government-wide initiative projected to cost $260 million to fully implement after facing a $130 million budget overrun and a 2.5-year delay as of March 31, 2025.

“This underscores the need for stronger planning, ongoing risk management and effective project analysis,” the report read. “Poor project risk management can lead to delaying necessary changes such as canceling a vendor contract timely where the expected result is not achievable or not responding proactively to keep an IT project on track.”

Clients of the ministry spent about $84 million on IT capital in 2024-25 and plans to spend about $62 million in 2025-26.

The province has received criticism for its handling of the Administrative Information Management System (AIMS). The troubled project was first proposed in 2018 and was planned to be made operational by March 21, 2025 at a cost of $86 million.

Seven years later, the project is still encountering issues with its implementation. The project’s cost has now ballooned to $250 million.

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