Info on being a dollar short comes a day late

I've finally been able to piece together some additional information on the African pay issue for two CF members deployed with Op Augural.

As mentioned in the Macleans article, this problem was apparently caused by a questionable administrative decision which triggered a computerized pay problem that didn't get properly fixed by someone in the pay system.

Op Augural is the CF support mission to the African Union mission in Darfur. According to the CF's website, twelve Canadian soldiers are deployed on this mission as follows:

• Six (6), including the Commanding Officer of Operation AUGURAL, are in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia;


• Four (4) are in the Darfur region of Sudan;


• Two (2) are in Khartoum, Sudan.

Op Augural is classified on a scale of one to four by the military as a Risk Assessment Level 2 mission. Exemption from income tax is not automatic for RA 2 missions (only for RA 3 and 4). For some reason it was granted to those soldiers serving in Darfur and Khartoum, but not to those in Ethiopia. I have no idea why the split.

I've been told that a pay system computer glitch was the next step in this problem. Apparently, there was no provision in the software code to split a designation on a single mission between those with tax exemption and those without, and a manual fix was required. That is to say, a pay clerk had to go into the system and force the pay codes to RA 1 for the members who didn't qualify for the exemption. You can read the unclassified pay memo on the issue by clicking here.

Unfortunately, two of the soldiers in Addis Ababa were given the tax exemption when it wasn't due to them yet, and so received thousands of dollars more in net pay than they qualified for. This is what prompted the crap-a-gram to a friend that pushed the story into the public sphere.

This explanation still leaves at least one question unanswered. If there are six Op Augural how could the pay personnel screw it up for two of them and not the other four in Ethiopia?

Apart from that, it seems my criticism of the leadership on this issue was at least partly unfounded. Although recent pay statements for these two unfortunate members indicated that they owed back taxes, no recovery action has been taken. That is to say, while their current pay is now having full taxes deducted, they haven't been required to give back the overpayment yet.

That's because cabinet is going supposedly going to decide in the next few weeks whether to extend tax exempt status to both the soldiers in Addis Ababa and to a couple of officers deployed in the Golan Heights with Op Gladius. This information is contrary to what Friscolanti wrote in Macleans about the decision taking until this summer. Watch and shoot, as they say.

But one way or another, somebody is going to owe somebody money. It will either flow from the soldiers to Revenue Canada for back-payment of taxes, or from Revenue Canada to the soldiers for overpayment (for the period since the glitch was "fixed"). Given some of the hardships faced by these CF members in Ethiopia, which include everything from parasitic infections to riots in the streets, I know which way I'd like to see the decision go.

But there's only one way to make sure it happens: write to your local Conservative MP (click on their name for an e-mail address) or candidate. Remind him or her that you're watching to see which way the political players around the cabinet table decide this issue. If you can't figure out how to contact your local candidate, contact the PMO. If we can hold some feet to a hot enough fire, we can ensure that our politicians do the right thing: take care of our deployed soldiers.