The Novopay debacle – #1

Adam Dudding has a lengthy piece in the SST on this mess.

However, his credence is not helped by an error in the first paragraph:-

Novopay is a horror show. A $30 million school payroll system due for completion in 2010 is finally rolled out in August 2012 with a price-tag closer to $100m.

Yet earlier in November, Tom Pullar-Strecker, of Fairfax’s Business Day, wrote:-

The Education Ministry agreed to pay Australia’s Talent2 $100.5 million to build and run its Novopay payroll system for eight years, a ministry revealed.

The figure is far larger than the $29.4m capital cost of the system or the $62.4m originally attributed to the contract in 2007

It would appear that some NZ$30 million relates to capital cost and the balance to on-going operational costs. In judging the operational costs we would need to understand what Datacom the prior incumbent were paid and compare on a like for like basis. Alternatively what does the MoE business case claim?

Given that Fairfax published both articles just which number is wrong?