The PPE purchasing scandal is gathering pace. The Times are reporting that 43 million facemasks supplied by Ayanda Capital, a family owned financial trading business have failed quality tests and are apparently unusable by the NHS. Ayanda supplied the masks as part of a £252 million order placed in April when the government was panicking and under severe pressure about the lack of protective equipment for front line staff. It was one of at least 60 contracts placed with single bidders and bypassing normal competitive tendering.
Ayanda have no history of supplying PPE and very few of the other suppliers did either.
The Times claim £150 million has been "wasted" with much more PPE supplied under the £252 million contract still to be tested. Isolation suits supplied by Pestfix Ltd, a pest control business in Littlehampton (£32 million) and gowns from Clandeboyes Agencies, a confectioney wholesaler in Antrim (£108 million) are also awaiting testing.
No doubt all of these suppliers thought there was easy money to be made but they might now be starting to sweat about having to pay the money back. I wouldn't bet a lot on any of them succeeding in recovering their money through the Chinese courts.
The Times say the Ayanda contract was "brokered" by Andrew Mills who was an adviser to Liz Truss and also to Ayanda Capital.
The BBC say Mr Mills has told them his position played no part in the awarding of the contract.
However, in legal documents connected with a judicial review brought by Jolyon Maugham QC and seen by The Times and the BBC, the government has disclosed that the original approach to sell the masks came not from Ayanda Capital but from Andrew Mills' company, Prospermill.
They had apparently secured the rights to the full production capacity of a large factory in China to produce masks and was able to offer a large quantity almost immediately. However, when I checked this morning Prospermill Ltd was set up in February 2019 with a share capital of £100 and has yet to file any accounts.
The legal documents note that Mills requested the government instead sign the contract for the masks with Ayanda Capital, whose board he advises, because it could arrange overseas payment more quickly. I bet he took a nice cut though.
There is much more to come out about all of this and the thing to note is that around £1 billion and possibly up to £5 billion was spent using single bidder contracts with the contracts being handed out almost willy-nilly and to all sorts of companies, some that appeared to be dormant just a few months beforehand and at least one set up days before receiving a substantial order.
It remains to be seen how much of the PPE, now in a NHS warehouse at Daventry will pass muster.
Many if not all of the contracts were handled by the cabinet office and I assume Cummings had a role in it. This is exactly the sort of thing one might expect to happen when an administration comes in with nothing but contempt for the civil service and intent on showing them how things can be done much more quickly.
Well, they were done quickly now somebody has to pick up the bill.
