Thread by @fascinatorfun

Lord Chadlington presided over Cameron’s Witney Tory Constituency Party, helped him get elected, and donated £100k to the Tories over 20 years.

Then recommended one of his subsidiary companies to get a £50 mill PPE contract despite red flags re insolvency risk.

https://twitter.com/goodlawproject/status/1463139345720909836

He is director of a company called Sumner Group Holdings, which has interests in a wide range of businesses, including Peruvian and Brazilian gold mines. His stake in the company is said to be worth about £5 million.

“One of its subsidiaries, a nursing recruitment agency called SG Recruitment UK, was awarded two PPE contracts of £23.9 million and £26.1 million last year, despite auditors having expressed concerns about the firm’s solvency.”

I should point out that the red flags re solvency were from the company’s own auditors. So what the hell happed to due diligence?

One of the constant themes of this fiasco is the way this Gov ignored specialists in medical PPE & equipment WHO WERE FINANCIALLY SECURE & with a track record in favour of companies who were not or who had no financial track record at all &/or with no medical supplies background

All this banging on about doing it because they were desperate does not address the blunt fact that they could have addressed their desperation by using track record suppliers…but by some weird coincidence managed to land on party donor and Tory MP mates.

Repeatedly

Often paying (with taxpayer money) well over the odds (even at pandemic prices) and getting unsuitable or defective supplies in return.