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Fifth of Government Covid Contracts “Raised Red Flags for Possible Corruption”

by Michael Curzon
22 April 2021 2:40 PM

The awarding of 73 Covid contracts worth more than £3.7 billion by the Government “merits further investigation”, according to an anti-corruption campaign group. Transparency International UK said some companies – vying, as an example, for contracts for the supply of PPE – were referred into a “VIP lane” because of their political connections, adding further weight behind accusations of a “chumocracy” at the heart of Government. The Guardian has the story.

One in five Government Covid contracts awarded between February and November 2020 contained one or more red flags for possible corruption and require urgent further investigation, a respected campaign group has warned…

The group said Boris Johnson’s Government must urgently disclose the identities of companies awarded public money through the VIP lane, which was set up by the Cabinet Office and the Department of Health and Social Care in the early days of the pandemic…

Transparency International UK said its analysis indicated “apparent systemic biases in the award of PPE contracts that favoured those with political connections to the party of Government in Westminster”, contrary to denials by civil servants and Conservative ministers.

The group said it had identified 73 Covid-related contracts with multiple factors that would ordinarily be treated as red flags for possible corruption, such as the company being politically connected. Twenty seven PPE or testing contracts worth £2.1 billion were awarded to firms with connections to the Conservative Party, it claimed.

The group said it had also identified £255 million of contracts awarded to companies that had only been incorporated within the previous 60 days. The figure is surprising because the short lifespan of the companies suggests they cannot have had any track record of actual business.

Many of the contracts were awarded without competitive tender. The Government has acknowledged suspending tender processes for Covid procurement, arguing that the urgency of the pandemic required it to move more quickly than a tender process would allow.

The report, Track and Trace, is compiled by researchers working for the UK chapter of the international organisation Transparency International. The group is respected in anti-corruption policy circles and publishes an annual corruption perceptions index that frequently informs national anti-bribery strategies.

Worth reading in full.

Tags: CorruptionGovernment contracts

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17 Comments
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Flying Saucer
Flying Saucer
4 years ago

Transparency International are an important anti-corruption group. Worth listening to what they say. This government has used the fake pandemic as a cover for self-enrichment. That much is clear. Power corrupts. Vote “no vote” at any election. All politicians are self-serving.

35
0
RickH
RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  Flying Saucer

“Vote “no vote” at any election. All politicians are self-serving.”

Politicians are not necessarily all ‘self-serving’. The current situation of the dire state of the HoC has been created, and is a reflection of a wide range of influences.

And voting ‘no vote’ solves absolutely nothing, although I agree that making a choice is sometimes impossible.

9
-1
Julian
Julian
4 years ago
Reply to  RickH

I agree not all politicians are always self-serving, though the current crop have been especially terrible (or maybe ’twas ever thus but we just hadn’t had the conditions to find out).

Regarding votes, I have always voted, choosing the least bad option, but now agree with Hitchens that sometimes if the choice is too bad you should not vote and let the party you would normally support be destroyed in the hope it would be reborn/replaced with something more to your liking. This also is unlikely to happen, but what else can one do?

Luckily there are some sceptic parties putting up candidates where I live so I will vote for whichever one of them is the most convicingly sceptical plus some account will be given to other policies of theirs. Most of them are what is often termed “right wing”; I think the furthest “left” would probably be the SDP.

8
0
Flying Saucer
Flying Saucer
4 years ago
Reply to  Julian

Here’s the reason why a “No Vote” vote works….

Protest votes count (votenone.org.uk)

4
0
RickH
RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  Julian

“ maybe ’twas ever thus”

Not in this way, I reckon. Until ten years ago, I was always actively involved in politics. That strips you of any stars in the eyes – there have always been shysters, the dishonest and simple voting fodder. But the quality of the MPs I have known started a marked decline in the early Blair years.

I wouldn’t pay our current MP in bent washers.

13
0
Flying Saucer
Flying Saucer
4 years ago
Reply to  RickH

In the 2015 election, 34% didn’t vote, and only 1% voted “none” (in other words, a protest vote). Protest votes should be the biggest vote, then things might change.

7
0
RickH
RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  Flying Saucer

Protest votes simply gift power to the largest non-protest vote.

3
0
TheBluePill
TheBluePill
4 years ago
Reply to  RickH

In my local elextion I have a choice of Lib, Lab or Con candidates. And I live in an area where the corpse of Jimmy Saville would win if it was adorned with a red rosette. So I will be spoiling my paper with profanity.

7
0
Milo
Milo
4 years ago
Reply to  Flying Saucer

Yes, Flying Saucer – and you know the old saying: “All power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely”. In days of yore an effective opposition would have been ripping any government to shreds for this kind of self enrichment and financial sleaze (how low can you possibly go that you take advantage of a supposed public health emergency??) but unfortunately we don’t currently have tha, and they are literally getting away with it seemingly without question or inquiry, and issuing anodyne statements like “we did everything correctly”. Is it just a sheer co-incidence that it is relatives and friends who got the contracts???

9
0
allansundrie
allansundrie
4 years ago
Reply to  Flying Saucer

This Transparency international?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/may/22/seeingthroughtransparencyin

“Their latest report on Venezuela, which was produced after months of research, is factually inaccurate in almost every respect.”

Looking at them they are just another organisation with a political agenda… Not helped by EU funding and ex politicians running them!

0
0
Bella Donna
Bella Donna
4 years ago

please share

image_2021-04-22_172609.png
12
-1
yohodi
yohodi
4 years ago

Ferguson said …”then, as infections seeded across the world, Sage debated whether, nevertheless, lockdowns would be effective here. “It’s a communist one party state, we said. We couldn’t get away with it in Europe, we thought.
And then Italy did it. And we realised we could.”
Well, they are all getting away with it now..it’s open season, and they don’t even bother to cover it up..

17
0
Woden
Woden
4 years ago
Reply to  yohodi

It’s an oldy but a goldy, ‘computers’ suck…

0
0
RickH
RickH
4 years ago

Wow! I’m shocked!

8
0
Annie
Annie
4 years ago
Reply to  RickH

but, like the Elephant’s Child, not at all astonished.

5
0
karenovirus
karenovirus
4 years ago

Sleaze and corruption. Tory or otherwise; the least of our worries it seems.

0
0
Carrie Symonds
Carrie Symonds
4 years ago

It is not just politicians. I include the civil service and local government as being guilty and in dire need of reform. There are too many noses in the trough. No doubt cases of corruption and incompetance will spill out.

1
0

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