The government has been, justifiably, pleased with being first-in-the field in securing supplies of varied vaccines and in administering 11 million doses already.
But they have less to be proud of in the way they have handled huge contracts for the supply of PPE - personal protection equipment.
Since the early days of the pandemic there has been a string of complaints of botched contracts resulting in goods supplied that proved useless, losing many millions of pounds.
The latest is an allegation that a £122 million contract was given, without the normal procedure, to a newly set up firm with no experience, for 50 million medical gowns that were unusable.
NHS Providers, which overseas supplies, told the government watchdog committee that supplies of gowns had been ‘the most pertinent problem’ over several months.
Earlier in the pandemic it was mask and containers found to be unusable, lying in containers in Felixstowe port.
The companies that supplied the equipment have all insisted that they had met the agreed terms of the contract.
The government should by now have learned to take more care with public money even in emergencies.
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