Thread by @JolyonMaugham

I’ve written before about how a company with connections to Number 10, Priti Patel, and Matt Hancock came to win a £100m facemask contract at superhigh prices – but we’ve had a further disturbing leak. 🧵

1. The connections were through two intermediaries: Surbjit Shergil and Samir Jassal on behalf of a company called Pharmaceuticals Direct.

2. As to Number 10.

Here’s (one of the) emails from Shergil copying Jassal to Johnson’s then close aide Munira Mirza offering PPE. "Thank you for your call... We are keen to support the Party."

We also have a written response from her to the intermediaries.

3. As to Priti Patel.

Here’s a letter she wrote to Mr Shergil offering to help (we have other correspondence between them). She's written to Matt Hancock about them and is batting furiously for them to win contracts with other Government Departments.

4. As to Matt Hancock, here he is in the Health and Social Care committee (committees.parliament.uk/event/4400/for…) admitting he has had direct contact with Samir Jassal.

(We also hold emails from Jassal to Hancock or "Matt" as he calls him: "Matt, you have been most helpful previously.")

5. Next, the contract. You can see it here (contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/22f31ba…). It is for £102.6m of a particular facemask – a “FFP3 Meixin 2016V” from Jinhua Meixin Protective Equipment Factory.

6. If you look above at "Total # items" (above) you can see "20m". 20 million for £102.6m makes a per unit price of £5.13.

Oh, and we have a leaked invoice to that effect.

7. Now, what about that £5.13 per mask unit price?

Some civil servants were concerned about it. It was “well above the average we are currently paying of £2.69 per unit.”

(Remember 20m at £2.69 would have cost £53.8m rather than the £102.6m we paid.)

8. But the accounting officer – that's the civil servant who has to sign off on the deal – was told that there was a risk of “stock-out” in mid-July and this was “the only viable option”. And so he is "content to approve this."

9. The Accounting Officer is also assured “this unit price has been keenly negotiated”. However several days before that email was written, civil servants were made aware of multiple offers for the *exact same facemask* at much lower prices.

10. This is why Cabinet Office pushes for the deal to be done with PDL...

11.... but we had bought previously from Aiya and Monarch - who are offering at lower prices - and we hold multiple emails suggesting discussions with other suppliers of this exact mask and model had been shut down a week previously.

12. (A slight side issue but CKF Healthcare is described in that email at 9 above as a “VIP Case” but is absent from the Government’s bullshit published list of VIPs gov.uk/government/new….)

11. Why would we have paid so hugely over the odds for £100m of facemasks from a company with close links to multiple Cabinet Ministers and to Number 10?

Well, we don't know. But what we do know is...

12. Surbjit Shergil charged PDL £16.37m plus VAT for his services (see leaked invoices in this file) some of which are explicitly connected with facemasks. drive.google.com/file/d/1Gwx5Be…

13. And another Shergil company (Registration Number 11158047) climbed in value to £9.9m from £200 in the relevant year.

14. We have some questions, obviously. Questions like: 'why does a business that understands itself to be participating in a clean procurement process pay vast sums to middlemen with connections to Cabinet Ministers and Number 10'?

15. And, what happened to the huge sums of money Surbjit Shergil or his entities received? And is there any connection between the vast sums he received and the fact that Cabinet Ministers and Number 10 were falling over themselves to help? /ENDS