During the COVID-19 pandemic, a Spanish businessman acted as an intermediary to provide protective clothing to the staff of the British National Health Service (NHS). He received 21 million pounds (about 183 million yuan) from British taxpayers. “Intermediary fees.”
Earlier this year, just as the COVID-19 virus was spreading rapidly around the world, Michael Saiger, a jewelry designer from Florida, USA, founded a company that provides personal protective equipment to governments.
Seger used his experience in working with Chinese factories to obtain a so-called “series of lucrative contracts” to provide protective gloves and protective clothing for the British National Health Service (NHS).
Seger invited another Spanish businessman, Gabriel Gonzalez Andersson, to help him with “procurement, logistics, investigation, product traceability and quality control” of personal protective equipment.
Anderson received more than 21 million pounds (28 million US dollars) in two government contracts. In court documents, he was described as “done very well under this arrangement.”
In June of this year, Seger signed three more agreements with the British government to provide millions of sets of protective gloves and surgical gowns to the NHS.
When the British government paid the fee, Anderson could have received another $20 million in consulting fees.
But the court documents claimed that when the agreement was signed, Anderson would no longer do any work for Seger. It is not clear whether Anderson received any funds from the second batch of transactions.
Seger said that this situation caused the delivery of personal protective equipment for NHS frontline employees to be delayed, and his company “hurriedly” performed the contract in other ways.
So far, the British Department of Health and Social Welfare (DHSC) has announced the contract signed with Seg’s company, with a total value of more than 200 million pounds. These contracts were all signed without public bidding competition.
The report pointed out that these contracts are currently causing legal disputes in Florida, and these transactions will also be challenged by the British lobbying organization “Good Law Project” in the British courts. The organization accused the British government of not paying “enough attention” to taxpayers’ money when signing contracts with Seg’s company.
“We don’t understand why until June, the government was still directly awarding lucrative contracts.” The head of the organization, Jolyen Maugham, said. “What should really be criticized is that the government allows such huge profits.”
Seger’s company responded: “We have never used a’middleman’. We have very few full-time employees. Therefore, in large projects, we will introduce short-term contractors to gain additional expertise and capabilities so that we can provide The services needed. We are very proud to provide millions of personal protective equipment to frontline workers in the UK, including nurses, doctors and hospital staff, to help them stay safe and save lives.”