Former premier Anna Bligh will be called to give evidence at Queensland Health payroll inquiry Date/Time: 2012:12:13 08:34:49 Source: The Courier-Mail FORMER Premier Anna Bligh will be called to give evidence at the Queensland Health Payroll inquiry, which has been told of the "death spiral" of one of the state's biggest financial disasters. Assisting Counsel Jonathan Horton has told the inquiry Ms Bligh will be cross-examined, along with Mal Grierson, Director General of Public Works when the contract was rolled out. The inquiry has this morning entered the critical phase of examining what exactly went wrong with a contract which started life as the $6 million component of a large outsourcing job won by tech giant IBM in 2007. After under-paying and over-paying thousands of Queensland Health employees the system is now estimated to cost tax payers around $1.2 billion. Mr Horton revealed the costs blow outs started mildly when IBM asked for an extra $330,000 for a $550,000 "scoping study." From there the $6 million went to $25.7 million to $98 million to $133 million to $181 million, and onward. Mr Horton said it was an "unavoidable fact" the project went over time, but the costs were also significant. "It (the contract) involved the expenditure of a very large amount of money on something that should have been more efficiently planned and implemented," he said. Mr Horton said he would bring evidence of a report released in early 2010 before the roll out began showing the system was not ready. Even without technical expertise, anyone reading that report would know the system was deeply flawed and would not work, he said. One can read that report and know there will be major problems with the system when it goes live. The inquiry will also hear evidence there was a deliberate watering down of accepted standards in order to press ahead with the roll out. Mr Horton said there was evidence of public servants becoming deeply fatigued as the system went into a "death spiral" in 2010 Mr Horton said Ms Bligh would be called to give evidence on what went wrong along with Mr Grierson "who had a number of direct contacts and communications with IBM."