Latest news with #SatvirJatana
CTV News
4 days ago
- Automotive
- CTV News
MPI shuts down failed IT project as costs drive up
Manitoba Public Insurance says it is closing Project Nova, an initiative to update the technology for insurance and driver licensing, including adding online services. Nova was announced in 2019, with a budget of $85 million. To date, MPI says the Crown corporation has spent $164 million on the project. It decided to pull the plug when estimates showed the costs would increase to $435.7 million. On top of that, none of this included a fourth and final phase. MPI said NOVA was plagued with delays, ineffective governance, procurement problems, and significant changes in leadership. It says the pandemic and the 2023 strike also impacted plans. Satvir Jatana, president & CEO of MPI, said the aspirations never met the Crown corporation's capacity or capabilities. 'Project timelines were unrealistic,' said Jatana. 'It is clear Nova has experienced significant missteps, and I would even be so bold to say failures.' In early 2023, the then CEO of MPI was replaced after the former PC government ordered a review. The current NDP government has now asked the auditor general to probe Nova. MPI said it will still move ahead to replace the outdated technology but is promising 'a more pragmatic approach,' including breaking down plans into smaller projects to better predict costs and timelines.
CBC
4 days ago
- Business
- CBC
MPI pulls plug on costly IT overhaul Project Nova, cites 'missteps' and 'failures'
Manitoba Public Insurance is cutting its losses and killing Project Nova, the IT overhaul project that has bled money since it was first launched in 2019, and the province has requested an audit of "the decisions and management" around it. "It is clear that Nova has experienced significant missteps, and I would be even so bold to say failures," MPI president and CEO Satvir Jatana said at a Thursday news conference. "It has not delivered the value for money that was originally planned and promised, and we did not make this decision lightly. However, staying on this path would not be responsible nor in the best interest of Manitobans." Project Nova was supposed to replace MPI's outdated technology with a new modern platform to provide insurance and driver licensing services and more online options for customers. The initial budget was $86 million, but within a few years it soared to $290 million. The MPI board and CEO who were decision makers on Project Nova are no longer in place. Jatana was hired in February 2024 and shortly after put a pause on Nova to get a better understanding of it. In January 2025, she noted $162 million had already been spent, but only two of Nova's four phases had been completed. At Nova's peak, close to 200 staff and close to 300 consultants worked on it. Now it's closer to 50 and 50, Jatana said. Consultant contracts ended while staff were shifted to other projects — there were no layoffs, she said. "There was ineffective governance — critical business requirements were overlooked, significant changes in MPI leadership, a global pandemic and a historic strike. These factors have led to delays and cost overruns with many starts and stops," she said Thursday, recapping what the review had found. "It is evident that our aspiration did not meet our capacity, nor our capabilities. Simply put, the project timelines were unrealistic." Finance minister wants audit The MPI announcement comes a day after Minister of Finance Adrien Sala sent a letter to Auditor General Tyson Shtykalo, requesting an audit of the decisions and management of Project Nova. If the project were to be completed, the updated cost projection was $452 million, according to Sala's letter, a copy of which was obtained by CBC. The two completed phases only constitute about 30 per cent of the project's scope, and only $46.5 million of value has been derived from it, according to the letter. An organizational review of MPI by the Treasury Board Secretariat, conducted in 2023 with a final report released in January 2025, identified issues including concerns around the selection of the Nova software, terms of the vendor contract and irregularities in contract practices, according to Sala's letter, which says MPI will be paying for software licences for years, despite the software not being used. According to Jatana, MPI is locked into contracts for about $88 million over the next seven years. Of that, $68 million is considered "no value." However, MPI is in discussions with vendors and "hopeful and optimistic" the contracts can be renegotiated to mitigate those costs, she said. Given the losses, there is value in a review that will inform future technology acquisitions, accountability and governance, even though the board and management behind Project Nova have been replaced, Sala's letter said. Jatana said the corporation will co-operate fully with any audit process and looks forward to the results. Aging technology still needs to be replaced: CEO While reviewing the past mistakes will help identify things to avoid in the future, the need to replace MPI's aging technology still exists, Jatana said. She also said the previous board and management failed to create a path forward for the corporation's other IT needs, which are equally outdated. The new board and management have studied what the next phases of Nova were expected to provide, and have done a thorough review of all other IT needs "to create a rolling five-year IT road map," she said. "This has provided a true picture of all the technological needs and allows the corporation to prioritize work into bite-sized pieces" to be done at a responsible pace, Jatana said. That approach also aligns with industry best practices, she said, and will include regular reporting intervals for accountability. MPI will break down the replacement needs for its systems into stand-alone projects with "reasonable timelines" of 12 to 24 months, said Jatana. A close-out report for Project Nova is coming, and will identify how much money was spent on work that has no value and will need to be written off, she said. Jatana insisted the wastage would have no impact on future insurance rates. "We have taken a hard look at what went wrong and we have implemented strategic changes to get us back on track," she said. The five-year roadmap is well thought out by a leadership team that is listening to experts, said MPI board chair Carmen Nedohin. One of the most important pieces is the governance behind it, which comes with clear decision-making accountability, she said.
CBC
27-01-2025
- Business
- CBC
Manitoba's public auto insurer restarting much-maligned technology overhaul after pausing it
Manitoba Public Insurance is forging ahead with its much-maligned technology overhaul project that significantly overshot cost projections, saying it paused the project last year to get a better understanding of how to deliver it. CEO Satvir Jatana told a legislative committee hearing Thursday the Crown corporation needed to take stock of Project Nova, an IT renewal project launched in 2019 that's intended to let customers and brokers complete more of their auto insurance business online. "We took a pause. We didn't want to continue because we have not been successful, I'll say, thus far," she said. "We did not want to blindly spend additional funds without truly understanding what it is that we're building, what are the needs and how are we going to deliver this." Project Nova has faced major cost overruns, with a budget that rose from $86 million to nearly $290 million over a few years. MPI has spent $162 million on Project Nova so far, Jatana said. "I can't sit here and say that we have realized the full value of that [money], so hence why we needed to pause," she said, in response to questioning from MLA Wayne Balcaen, the Progressive Conservative critic for MPI. "We needed, with this board, with this leadership team, to ensure that we don't just continue to spend ratepayer dollars without delivering value, and that's what we've been focused on." 'Lots of defects': CEO The replacement of the public insurer's outdated information technology systems was supposed to be completed this spring, but only two of the four phases are finished, and one of those phases had "lots of defects," Jatana said. She didn't reveal a timeline or cost estimate for the remaining two phases, which consists of "the majority of the delivery," Jatana said. An MPI spokesperson said Project Nova is in the midst of "a detailed planning phase that will help us understand the requirements that must be in place before we move forward with implementing any further changes." She promised MPI will reveal more details in the coming months. Asked Friday when the pause took effect, MPI wouldn't give an answer, but Jatana said at a committee hearing last March the corporation needed to "rethink [and] re-plan" the IT overhaul. She also said Project Nova's next steps would be released that spring, but that didn't happen. The first phase of the project involved shifting trucking and commercial insurance customers to an online-based platform, but it's been dogged by problems since its 2023 release. Jatana said MPI stopped migrating customers over to the new system several months later to address defects. With half of commercial customers currently using the new system and the rest continuing to use the old system, all customers are continuing to be served properly, she said. The second phase of Project Nova, which shifted the vehicle registration system for trucks and buses travelling outside Canada online, was released last summer. After the pause to Project Nova, work to fix the bugs plaguing its first phase has continued, and Jatana said significant progress has been made in the last five to six months. Frustration with lack of progress The limited progress on Project Nova stems from the corporation enduring a 10-week strike in late 2023, the subsequent work to clear the backlog, and multiple leadership changes, said Jatana, who was named CEO early last year. She said there's frustration internally, especially among staff who have worked diligently on the project. "I can never say enough to them, 'This is not you. This is the situation we put you in.'" Balcaen, the Tory MPI critic, told the committee he's glad to hear Jatana say she doesn't want to "overcommit and under-deliver." That's a trend "I've seen with this [NDP] government," he said. However, he wasn't happy Jatana said she couldn't speak further about Project Nova's future steps without permission from MPI's board, whose chairperson, Carmen Nedohin, told the committee the plan for the project still needs to be finalized. Matt Wiebe, the NDP minister in charge of the MPI file, used part of his final address to the committee to allege Balcaen was "really starting to acknowledge the mess that was left by the previous government." The sharp jump in costs for Project Nova and the corporation's attempt to hire a few hundred more staff were among the reasons the former Progressive Conservative government ordered an external review of the corporation in 2023. That audit found the insurer was top heavy and contending with instability from various leadership changes, and that Project Nova "dominates and consumes" discretionary resources. Jatana has previously said Project Nova cannot be abandoned because MPI must upgrade its outdated technologies.
