New research raises corruption questions over billions in COVID public spending

[Unlucky4Sum]

Speed was at the essence to save lives . Its no good moaning about it now because a few Del Boys got rich in the process or a few brown envelopes were slipped into pockets to grease the wheels .

But isn't it strange how many of those speedy contracts went to people with senior Tory connections.  In some cases by excluding proven suppliers of quality.

And then the Tories went into all sorts of legal shenanigans to preclude legal challenge.

It stinks. 

[papasmurf]

Speed was at the essence to save lives . Its no good moaning about it now because a few Del Boys got rich in the process or a few brown envelopes were slipped into pockets to grease the wheels .

I am not moaning about it, it was in some cases frankly criminal and should be treated as such.

[Streetwalker]

Speed was at the essence to save lives . Its no good moaning about it now because a few Del Boys got rich in the process or a few brown envelopes were slipped into pockets to grease the wheels .

[papasmurf]

Not news to me, but recovering as much of the wasted money would helpful:-
Far more at link, it is a long and very detailed analysis.

Behind the Masks: Corruption red flags in COVID-19 public procurement | Transparency International UK

9/9/2024.
Compliance with the legal requirement to publish information on high-value contracts within 30 days of award completely collapsed. We found that between February 2020 and February 2023, 1,764 COVID-19 related contracts,iv worth £30.1 billion in total (63 per cent of all COVID-19 contracts by value), were reported after the 30-day legal deadline. Of these, there were 141 high-value contracts, worth £5 billion in total, the details of which were published more than one year after their award.
...


Out of the 5,035 COVID-19 contracts included in our
research, we found 135 (2 per cent by count) that have
three or more corruption risk indicators which merit further
investigation. These are worth £15.3 billion, equating to
roughly one-third of all the value of all pandemic contracts
and matching the total spent on COVID-19 PPE contracts
in the UK

................................................................................................

We found that almost two-thirds of all high-value
UK COVID-19 contracts, worth £30.7 billion, lacked
competition. A year into the pandemic, most of the
contracts awarded by value continued to be given without
competition – unlike in EU countries, which quickly
abandoned this practice