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The government of Quebec may have to write checks by hand in 2000.
Think of every government on earth in the same condition. This assumes, of course, that banks will still be open.
Medicare mails out about 80 million checks a month.
Notice that the report says that the government still has not completed its inventory of systems. Inventory is 1% of a y2k repair, after awareness (1%).
This is from the MONTREAL GAZETTE (June 4).
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The Quebec government is running a high risk of not fixing the millennium computer bug before it is too late, Auditor-General Guy Breton warned yesterday. That could leave it paying out cheques by hand and suffering other costly problems like equipment breakdowns.
In his bi-annual report, Breton said that of 25 government departments and agencies his staff checked, five have very risky conversion programs and another 10 have plans that could present serious problems.
And Breton said while back-up copies of computer files should ensure that no data will actually be lost when the calendar flips to the year 2000, the government could find itself with the costly inconvenience of having to pay out cheques by hand. . . .
While the government has given the Treasury Board responsibility for co-ordinating the conversion, Breton found the board still did not have a detailed inventory of the government's "strategic" computer systems.
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