Thread by @JolyonMaugham

Remember the Florida jeweller (Saiger), the Spanish intermediary (Mr Andersson), and the vast profits (from your taxes)?

Because there have been Developments. THREAD
crowdjustice.com/case/the-jewel…

We don’t know how many contracts Government gave to Saiger because it has been publishing them in lots of different places. Here are the five Government has published on “Contract Finder” which amount to £235m. /1

However, Government has also published five contracts with Saiger on Tenders Electronic Daily (and they are not exactly the same contracts). And they have withdrawn some contracts previously published on Contract Finder. /2

It’s impossible to know how much Saiger won but those (so far published) look to be between £250m-£300m.

I want to focus on two of those contracts.

The first is a contract entered into in April 2020 but published nine months later (the law allows 30 days) in January 2021. /3

Its value is £36.16m. It was entered into on 24 April 2020 (contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/844bd97…) and it is for three different types of FFP2 facemasks.

The first type was for these masks for which we paid a per unit price of $2.37. /4

The photos Govt published with the contract show that they are “earloop” masks – a type previously supplied by our old friends Pestfix and Ayanda – and which Government has admitted can't be used in the NHS because they can’t be relied on to fit properly. /5

In one sense it doesn’t matter what we paid for them if they can’t be used regardless. But one might also compare the $2.37 per unit paid with the prevailing price paid by DHSC on 24 April (when the contract was entered into) of about 60p per unit. /6

The second type of FFP2 mask we paid an even higher price for: $2.57 per mask. These are also 'earloop' masks – so again can’t be used in the NHS. (Oh, and this very model was ‘deauthorised’ in the US on 7 May: fda.gov/media/137928/d…). /7

The third type of FFP2 mask we paid an even higher price still for: $2.93 per unit. And, yep, you guessed it: they too are 'earloop' masks and so can’t be used in the NHS. /8

So that’s £36.16m in this contract alone spent on FFP2 facemasks that can’t be used in the NHS. But I said there were two contracts...

The other one is the contract we are judicially reviewing, which is for £70.52m to buy 10.2m sterile surgical gowns. crowdjustice.com/case/the-jewel… /9

You’ll recall that, under that gowns contract alone, the Florida jeweller, Saiger, was to pay a little over $16m to Mr Andersson, a Spanish businessman, for various management services. And that he was to get $50m in total from Saiger. /10

What we have learned from Govt is that Saiger – which got ~a quarter of a billion pounds in PPE contracts – was rated “amber” for financial sustainability but we contracted with it anyway. Partly because “it was not inconceivable” it would have the right contacts? What? WHAT? /11

But it gets even worse.

Government admits that almost all of the sterile surgical gowns supplied under that £70m+ contract for 10.2m gowns are not able to be used as such (we think because they are wrapped in such a way that their sterile quality can’t be maintained). /12

At this stage, you might wonder whether a responsible Govt would put its hand up and say “look, we got this wrong.”

Not this Govt. It is spending literally millions in public funds trying to stop this stuff coming to light and trying to fight off accountability for it. /13

If you would like to support our continuing fight for transparency, please contribute to our crowdfunder (crowdjustice.com/case/the-jewel…) or become a supporter of @GoodLawProject goodlawproject.org/donate/ /ENDS