The National Audit Office began investigating in the middle of July and this morning their report is made public. I haven't had time to read it but The Guardian and other news outlets have been given early access and report on it this morning.
Huge sums of public money was thrown at obtaining PPE, in total about £18 billion; an absolutely staggering amount of money for masks, gowns and gloves. Much of it (£10.5 billion) went on single bidder contracts and nearly 500 of these went through a "high-priority" channel to suppliers with political connections.
These were suppliers who either contacted or knew their MP or minister and were then "referred" to this "high-priority" channel and "automatically treated as credible suppliers." These suppliers were ten times more likely to be awarded a contract - the largest was for £410 million. Nearly all the money went to the same Chinese manufacturers anyway through a web of contacts who were all outbidding each other to get priority.
Some of the suppliers were dormant companies a few weeks before while others were set up days before being given multi-million pound contracts. About a third of these so-called "referrals" came from the private offices of government ministers. Less than half of the 493 contracts awarded through the channel had the name of the referrer in the order management file. Some orders were placed after the supplier had started work!
I think as the newspapers get into this it will destroy what little credibility the Tory party has and destroy their reputation in the red wall seats. Even more than that, the man who started the ball rolling, Jolyon Maugham at The Good Law project, says we actually procured five years worth of PPE at prices which were then at an all-time high because of surging global demand. Some of the stuff does not apparently meet the specification and most of it wasn't used anyway. It ended up in the DHSC's warehouse in Daventry subject to testing.
However, I assume the warehouse became full and containers full of PPE began to block Felixstowe and so there has been a big operation to shift 1000 ISO containers to Mendlesham airfield near Stowmarket in Suffolk according to the East Anglian Daily Times.
I am not sure the PPE kit has an indefinite shelf life and stored outside in metal containers doesn't seem like a desirable thing to me. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of it has to be thrown away.
Yesterday the BBC reported how one contract was placed on a designer of jewellery in Miami, Florida with a middleman in Spain paid $28 million dollars with a further $20 million to come in consulting fees. We know the details because the two men are in litigation in the USA.
The whole thing looks really bad. I assume the "political connections" were confined to the Tory party and that a lot of people made a lot of money - at least a £1 billion between them - and no doubt some of them would be grateful enough to make a donation. to party coffers. I assume that's how it works.
It looks like a feeding frenzy using massive amounts of public money sloshing about in contracts won without a competitive tender and under the guise of helping the NHS at a time of crisis. But it has all turned sour.
