It's now well over two weeks since we waded into the Canberra Institute of Technology's $8.5 million contracts saga.
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And we're no closer to answering most of the pressing questions around how the institute came to award a series of contracts over five years to someone who brands himself a "complexity and systems" thinker.
The latest episode in the grimly fascinating chronicle is that the institute's chief executive Leanne Cover has been stood down while an an internal audit is held and an integrity commission investigation begins.
She'll also be subject to a performance appraisal, something that seems both laughably trivial and the most important feature of the story.
Because that's what a lot of this story comes down to - who wasn't doing their job properly, and when?
When it comes to the vast bureaucracy of the public service - on both the federal and state and territory levels - the machinations that go into what taxpayer funds are used for are generally complex, often opaque, and certainly not a topic the average person has cause to turn their mind to on a regular basis.
We have reason to expect, though, that the money is not being wasted on what could well turn out to be a world salad in a document that ends up standing for absolutely nothing.
Of course, untold sums of money are blown regularly on, for example, expensive feasibility studies for theoretical projects that, for various reasons, end up going nowhere.
In such cases, it's always better to spend the money and see it ultimately wasted, than to not carry out such a study and see a project proceed - and flail - without any forethought or planning.
But to fork out millions for a contract that had unclear deliverables - to the point where even the most erudite and intelligent people in the sector are still scratching their heads over the meaning of declared aims such as to "detect early/weak signals and build trends to improve products and services" and "establish and self-sustain practices that allow for iterative learning cycles"?
And then to learn that CIT's executive ignored advice from the ACT government's procurement board about a nearly $5 million contract, without an open tender process?
It's the kind of behaviour that belongs in political satire.
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Canberrans deserve answers.
The scandal has seriously damaged the reputation of one of Canberra's important tertiary institutions.
The least we can expect is that taxpayer funds be spent on something that contributes broadly to the common good.