Software glitch overpays welfare by $20 million

The provincial government is downplaying problems with a new computer system that mistakenly overpaid welfare and disability support recipients. A sum of 20-million dollars last week.

The Ontario government is blaming a glitch in the new software system that provides social assistance transfers, but says the bug was fixed 24 hours after being caught during its very first payout.

Ninety nine percent of the bad cheques were stopped and corrected, but 300-thousand dollars did end up being received. The software allotted 20 million dollars to roughly 17-thousand clients with the Ontario Disability Support Program and the Ontario Works Welfare program. Monday at Queen’s Park, the Liberals were doing damage control as they faced criticism from the opposition.

The Liberals say just over 100 cheques still need to be corrected. The average overpayment was eleven hundred dollars. The government will claw back future payments to the 253 recipients if they’re not able to regain the funds directly.