You may recall that Ayanda, connected to Liz Truss, delivered £160m of unusable face masks to the NHS in a contract that had remarkable and inexplicable clauses (which Govt refuses to explain) for a profit we believe to be substantially in excess of £50m. /1
Ayanda served a brief Summary Defence to our judicial review - which is brought against the Government not it - which rarely elevates itself above the rhetorical. You can read it here, if you really want. /2 https://www.dropbox.com/s/fokgvpg5lv709dx/Ayanda%20Summary%20Grounds.pdf?dl=0
You may think given these facts we properly took this action in the public interest. But yesterday its lawyers sent this letter to the court attaching this bill for over £40k for that very preliminary work alone. /3 https://www.dropbox.com/s/c28ueqmuorksk6z/Statement%20of%20Costs%20-%2010.09.2020.pdf?dl=0.
We hope we won't have to pay it - but the threat of massive costs bills, which Pestfix, impecunious before it landed eleven public PPE contracts, is also wielding - is the most effective way to ensure that we never get to see what and with whom Govt does with your money. /4
In the last few days we have written to Government demanding, again, a list of the billions of unlawfully unpublished contracts (we think of the £7.5bn of PPE contracts the NAO was aware of on 30/7 Govt has published less than £3bn worth). /5 https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/fight-for-transparency/
And yesterday we wrote to Government asking for details of the over £100bn of proposed spend - nearing £2,000 for every single person in the UK - that Government is committing with zero scrutiny over why, how or with whom. /6 https://goodlawproject.org/news/operation-moonshot/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=social%20media&utm_campaign=Moonshot
We will not be bullied into silence by these threats of enormous costs bills. If you sell £160m of unusable masks to the NHS you should expect some, and you certainly deserve, scrutiny. End of.
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