BRISBANE City Council has terminated a trouble-plagued IT contract with an Australian software giant in a move that has been branded a “cowardly” attempt to hide details of the bungle.

In the middle of the bus driver strike this afternoon, council released a statement saying it had terminated the contract with Brisbane-based TechnologyOne because of breaches.

“Council will be seeking damages and, in accordance with the contract, has advised TechnologyOne that the matter will now be referred to arbitration for determination,” the statement said.

Council are seeking $50 million in damages.

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said the decision was about an “effective use of ratepayers’ money”.

“Based on what we have seen of the TechnologyOne system, this is a product still very much in development,” Cr Quirk claimed.

“After initially promising the product would be operational by March 2017, TechnologyOne has requested several extensions for the Go Live date with the most recent advice that it won’t occur until January 2019.”

TechnologyOne disputes this, claiming council requested a “go live” date later than March 2017.

The cloud hosting company was contracted by council for $50 million in June 2015 to roll 13 council systems into one platform.

But on January 25 this year, Cr Quirk put the company on notice when he revealed the program had blown out in scope by $60 million, which would be spent on council resources and contractors.

Brisbane bus strike to impact 100,000 Brisbane bus strike to impact 100,000

TechnologyOne has denied breaches of contract, blaming council for requesting the increase in the scope of the project.

It has accused council of failing to understand its own processes.

In a release to the stockmarket, company founder Adrian Di Marco tonight welcomed the arbitration announcement, which he had been calling for to reach a resolution, but said the company planned to lodge a $50 million counterclaim for damages of its own.

If a confidential settlement is reached in arbitration, it means ratepayers may never learn the details of what happened with the bungle or how much is paid in damages.

Mr Di Marco used the stockmarket announcement to call on council to release a secret report by Democracy Intelligence it commissioned after the project started going off the rails last year.

Council claim it is hiding the report because it would jeopardise ongoing contract renegotiations with TechnologyOne.

“BCC are hiding this report from the public because it is damning on BCC and it will expose their unprofessional and disingenuous behaviour,” Mr Di Marco said.

Council opposition leader Peter Cumming branded the tactic as a “cowardly” move that was “clearly aimed at hiding details of the multimillion-dollar bungle from Brisbane residents”.

“This is a disgraceful ploy to bury their multimillion-dollar blunder,” Cr Cumming said.

“Worse, they’ve tried to sneak it under the cloak of a Friday afternoon bus strike.

“Lord Mayor Quirk has refused to release the independent report into the contract because it blamed the mess on the council. Now he’s completely burying any record of his incompetence.”