Corruption? ‘Blundering’ UK Gov’t faced with more questions over COVID spending
One of the areas that the UK Government and the UK press have alleged corruption is in the Territory’s COVID-19 spending. It should be noted that the accusations have come as a result of mere allegations and rumours.
Questions being asked of Boris & UK Gov’t
And while the UK has backed controversial ex-governor Augustus J. U. Jaspert to call a Commission of Inquiry into governance in the VI, the UK government is now left to answer to questions about its own COVID-19 spending.
It is being reported in several UK publications today, January 28, 2021, that just one in 100 Government Covid-19 contracts worth an eye-watering £17.3billion was awarded by competitive tender, raising more questions about whether the taxpayer has been getting value for money during the pandemic.
According to The Times, despite the public debate over whether the taxpayer has received good value for the billions spent on tackling the virus, the Institute for Government (IfG) said it had seen little evidence of Whitehall re-establishing traditional competitive procurement rules.
“Out of £17.3 billion of new contracts issued up to the end of July, £10.5 billion were direct awards and £6.7 billion were given to firms on lists of approved suppliers. Only 1 per cent were awarded through competitive tenders,” The Times reported.
UK the ‘Wild West’
And according to BBC Breaking News, companies with no experience of supplying masks, gloves and aprons won lucrative Government deals in the ‘shambolic’ scramble for contracts – with critics calling it the ‘Wild West’.
An IFG spokesman said: ‘There is no evidence that the use of direct awards at the start of the crisis has waned as the crisis has gone on. Even though many of the Test and Trace contract awards have come later in the pandemic, those contracts have been just as likely to be direct awards.’
Tim Durrant, author of the new ‘Whitehall Monitor 2021 report’, added: ‘Boris Johnson and his ministers need to learn from the repeated U-turns, the poor-value-for money schemes and the other mistakes of 2020, as well as from what has gone well, to make a success of 2021’.
The Government has insisted it followed ‘robust’ processes when handing out contracts to battle the pandemic.
UK Gov’t put $$ in wrong bank & other blunders
The pandemic has seen the Government dole out an extraordinary number of contracts – and claims of a large number of blunders.
According to the publication, millions of pounds were put into the wrong bank account when the government frantically rushed to source PPE, it was revealed last year.
It emerged last summer that a staggering £830m worth of PPE has ‘never materialised’ three months after it was ordered.
Shadow Health Secretary Justin Madders said the race to bag a multi-million pound PPE contract was ‘like a gold rush in the Wild West.’
The government opened its portal inviting tenders for PPE on its website on March 27, the 500-person buying team reportedly received 24,000 offers from 16,000 suppliers by August.
So far, the government has published details of around 100 contracts worth £1.7bn – the largest of which was £252.5m awarded to family investment firm Ayanda Capital for face masks.
Officials have since revealed however the total is more than three times higher at £5.5bn, with 600 contracts awarded to 200 companies.
There is an old saying when you dig a grave for someone, dig one for yourself. It seems the UK Government and ‘Boris’ Johnson, who has said colonialism in Africa should never have ended and downplayed Britain’s role in the slave trade, may need to hear that.
Click on link for more information:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/no-competition-for-99-of-contracts-0kgg96h3c
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12 Responses to “Corruption? ‘Blundering’ UK Gov’t faced with more questions over COVID spending”
People in glass houses shouldn’t throw thermonuclear weapons. Stop the mudslinging.