The wait for answers is finally over.

Ottawa's Auditor General Ken Hughes did not hold back when revealing his findings on the city's 20-year deal with Orgaworld.

'“Ottawa has been paying a premium to send some of its leaf and yard waste to Orgaworld on one hand while not being able to meet guaranteed volumes at the plant on the other.  Together these penalties to date total $7.7 million,”says Hughes.

His audit of the contract shows that key documentation and figures were missing from the deal, some of which were not properly presented by city staff.

"The city paid $8 million than it need not have paid had it negotiated a better contract."

“It's so disappointing to find out that councillors weren't given factual info by our staff,” said councilor Maria McRae, “I will stop short of calling our staff liars Mr. Mayor, but we know what I’m leading up to."

Ottawa City Manager Kent Kirkpatrick apologized for the mistake and said steps have been taken to ensure this kind of thing never happens again.

 “The senior staff who were involved with Orgaworld are no longer with the city,” Kirkpatrick told city councilors, “they left for other jobs or other organizations.”

Hughes said one major failure was that management failed to exercise due diligence in the process. Communications to council were also ambigious.

Hughes is recommending city council explore the early termination of the contract with Orgaworld. Kirkpatrick estimated it would cost the city between $8 and $10 million dollars.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson says getting out of the deal might not be a realistic option.

"If it makes economic sense and if we have a supplier ready and able to go,” says Watson, “I am ready to entertain the idea of canceling contract.”

Orgaworld says it's going to be more like $56-million to get out of the contract. The company says the program is working well and is surprised by the results of the audit and the comments by council.

“I will be honest,” says Dale Harley with Orgaworld, “today it felt like we were being thrown under the bus by some of the comments that were being made.”

Harley says Orgaworld is willing to sit down with the city of Ottawa to explore ways to realign the price by expanding the program to include diapers, plastic and pet waste.

Some of the councilors were questioning whether there was a possibility of wrongdoing in all this.  The auditor general says there doesn't appear to be any evidence of that.