LONDON (Reuters) – Parliamentarians said on Sunday the British government would be exposed to decades of financial risk from its £372 billion spending on the pandemic, and also said more than £2 billion had been spent on equipment. .
In two reports on British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said lessons must be learned before a promised public inquiry scheduled for 2022.
“With the large sums that have been spent on Covid measures to date, the government needs to be clear now how this will be managed in the future and for how long that will take,” said Meg Heller, chair of the PAC.
PAC highlighted an estimated £26 billion loss through fraud and default on corporate loans to help fight the pandemic as an example of the ongoing financial risk.
In a second report, the commission said there were also “unacceptably high” levels of waste, with 2.1 billion pieces of inappropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) purchased, the equivalent of more than £2 billion in public funds.
The government has said that only 0.84% of all PPE is unusable and that it has plans to reuse those that cannot be used in health services.
(Bur Michael Holden)
