What ArriveCan app contractor and former DND employee had to say about allegations

The CEO of Dalian Enterprises – one of the companies tangentially involved in the development of the ArriveCan border app – denies that multiple layers of contractors and sub-contractors were used to blur the contracting process for nefarious purposes.

"I am not aware," David Yeo told parliamentarians on Tuesday.

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The ArriveCan app, and its price tag, have raised questions about the federal government's contracting processes in recent weeks.

"We are the general contractor and the prime contractor for the government," Yeo told a parliamentary committee via videoconference on Tuesday. "We hire sub-contractors to do the work. So what we do is contract management, not the actual work (on the app)."

The House public accounts committee is reviewing a report by Auditor General Karen Hogan, released last month, which details the estimated cost of the much-maligned app and states "it did not deliver the best value for taxpayer dollars spent."

Meanwhile, CTV News reported earlier this month that Yeo was a Department of National Defence employee while he was also the CEO of Dalian, and that he'd been suspended.

Hogan reported Dalian had received $7.9 million for its work on the ArriveCan app.

Yeo, during two tense hours of testimony, disputed the dollar figure on the amount of money his company made for its work, defended the contracting process and insisted he was not a public servant during the ArriveCan contracting process.

Conservative MP Garnett Genuis, however, accused Yeo of trying to "weasel (his) way out of" what was "clearly" a conflict of interest.

CTV News has also reported on the complex contracting and sub-contracting process behind the app's development involving several companies, including GC Strategies, Coradix and Dalian.

Meanwhile, the co-founders of another company formerly contracted by the Canada Border Services Agency, Botler AI, were the ones to raise initial concerns about the process for doling out government contracts.

They told CTV's Question Period host Vassy Kapelos in an interview earlier this month that they learned of inconsistencies and inaccuracies during the contracting process, including that elements of their previous work experience had been inflated.

Several key players in the ongoing ArriveCan border app contracting saga have also testified before the committee in recent weeks, including the heads of GC Strategies, the company at the heart of the controversy, which Dalian had sub-contracted.

Yeo told the committee he's "just as dismayed as everybody else" to hear the concerns raised by the Botler co-founders — adding he disagrees with their assessment of the situation — and pointed the finger at GC Strategies for complicating the contracting process.

With files from CTV News Chief Political Correspondent Vassy Kapelos