The government has backtracked on official documents showing that it awarded PestFix £108 million to procure personal protective equipment (PPE), saying it reported the sum “in error”.
Last month, the Department for Health published documents that showed PestFix secured a deal worth £108m in April. The government handed out more than £350m worth of PPE contracts to private companies in April, as the UK scrambledto find sufficient levels of protective equipment for the NHS.
The £108m figure meant the deal with Pestfix represented almost a third of the government’s total PPE procurement funding.
City AM reported that the government has now said the £108m figure was incorrect, following legal proceedings from non-profit organisation the Good Law Project.
The Good Law Project claimed the contract was awarded without a competitive tender process and to a company that had no prior expertise in producing PPE.
In a letter to the Good Law Project, the government said it reported the details of the contract “in error”, and that the Pestfix PPE contract was actually worth £32m.
“It has come to light that the contract award notice published on May 18 was issued in error, and a new notice with the correct details will be issued shortly”, the letter read.