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Australian government paid millions for unusable Covid face masks from obscure online retailer
Exclusive: almost 46m masks turned out to be unusable after $100m in contracts were awarded to company with little apparent pre-pandemic experience in PPE supply
- Pandemic PPE: how Australia entrusted a small-time retailer with $100m and got 46m unusable masks
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The Australian government was left with almost 46m unusable face masks after handing $100m in Covid contracts to an obscure online retailer, who sourced the equipment via companies registered in the low-tax jurisdiction of Cyprus.
The Department of Health awarded the contracts in April and June 2020 to Australian Business Mobiles NSW (ABM), a small company whose experience lay predominantly in selling air fryers, robot vacuum cleaners, bedding and massage guns.
Read the original article at The Guardian