Meet Andrew Mills, an everyday, ordinary looking man one might think, possibly? He might be a nice chap to speak to and remembers, birthdays, anniversaries, and might even be the type to give you the shirt of his back, as his friends might choose to describe him, maybe, assuming he still has friends, because he might have lost one or two recently.
A Financial Times article credited to Tabby Kinder during August 2020, reported on a failed UK government purchase of 50 million masks for UK health workers from Ayanda Capital Limited in April 2020, however, after signing the contract the government found out that the masks provided inadequate protection and could not be used for the original purpose costing the UK taxpayer around £250 million.
Another national daily newspaper, The Times, on January 21st, 2021, contained an article with the heading, Andrew Mills: ‘Advisor behind bungled £250 million mask contract hides earnings,’
The last report we have looked at was a report in the Scotsman by Alex Nelson on Thursday, 6th August 2020, revealed that the ‘deal’ was formulated by a government Board of Trade adviser, Andrew Mills, who advised the government to award the contract to Ayanda, a company based in the ‘tax haven’ of Mauritius, although the company have stated they do pay UK taxes.
And why were the masks from Ayanda Capital useless? The ear-loops should have been head-loops, as well as concerns over the adequacy of the masks. So, it was a clear case of, ‘Oops with the Loops.’
Did you like that snippet, well if you did, then this should knock your socks off: The article also stated that Andrew Mills, according to LinkedIn, has been listed as a Senior Board Adviser to Ayanda Capital since March of that year. Furthermore, and according to the same article, ‘Millsy Boy,’ owns his own company, Prospermill, and not too long ago bought a large factory in China (funny how so many roads these days are leading to Chy-Na?).
Hold on, a ‘grey man’, in a pin-stripe suit, bowler hat, shiny shoes and sporting a black umbrella, who is a representative of the UK government, has just handed to us, here at Red Brick, a joint response from them and Andrew ‘Milly-on-us,’ re the paragraph above and it reads: “Now, now, people, move along, there is nothing to see here.”
Thanks for that reassurance, AM, but we too get out of bed early, (see what I did there?), just to make sure that public interest news, does not get buried under some other, more serious, news event. And in any case, the matter did not end there.
Following the failure of the contract with Ayanda, the Government has confirmed in court papers that the masks, which are now in the Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) logistic chain, will not be used in the NHS.
The good news is that two of the ‘good guys, who are from The Good Law Project, and, Every Doctor, are suing the Government over its Ayanda contract, whilst some other insignificant, ‘woke’ political entity named the Labour Party, or Labrador Panting, has called for an ‘inquiry into the contract (and how much of that statement is ‘guff’ who can tell?).
So, considering all those useless masks the government bought from Ayanda, and the level of ‘savvy’ shown by our government prior to the purchase of the masks, is it any wonder that there is so little trust in politicians, who were democratically elected by the people, not only to protect the people’s assets, but also the UK’s, too.
Finally, we ask the question, the money, once owned by the British taxpayer, and should still be owned by the British taxpayer, will there be a refund for the imperfect goods supplied by Ayanda? To answer the question, we, consulted our very own resident statistician, Viv ‘the Spiv’ Leeson, who concluded, after a few seconds of calculus, that, the odds were between, “Slim, and none, and Slim had just left town.”