And man alive does the money wasted on those expiring Covid RAT kits warrant a mention. That wastage is out the gate and completely unnecessary.
Last week we thought it was just $160m worth of kits due to expire without being used, today we find out it’s actually $530m worth.
$530m is almost enough Government money to set up two Medical schools at Waikato University. It's half of Pharmac’s annual budget... that’s six months of life saving drugs.
It would pay for all the beds, operating theatres, and imaging services being cut from Dunedin’s new hospital to save money… six times over.
And it didn’t need to be spent.
That is the frustrating thing. Private businesses were prepared to spend this money instead the Government spending it.
Remember that?
Remember in January last year when private businesses were ordering RAT kits for their staff at the height of the Covid outbreak, and then in swooped Ashley Bloomfield and Jacinda Ardern and basically confiscated those RAT kits that were on order by telling the suppliers to give the RATs to the Government and not to private businesses.
And for what?
For them now to sit in storage and go to waste.
There is no way that we are going to use those 40 million remaining RAT kits by April; there are only 5 million of us. Each of us would have to use 8 boxes of RATs each... and remember there were three to five tests in each of those boxes.
So we have to use 8 boxes each by April next year, and I haven’t even used one box this year.
It's not going to happen.
That is money wasted.
I can’t understand why the Government did it, why they swooped and bought all the RATs —way more than we needed— when other people were prepared to spend their money instead.
The only explanation you can come to is mad control freakery from Jacinda and Ashley.
Just look around you. Look at all the things your town or region needs right now, because the Government can’t afford it. And to think it can’t afford it because half a billion dollars is sitting in warehouses going off.
Of all the wasted money in the last six years this has got to be the worst.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show.
4 comments:
Little wonder it is so difficult to rein in Treaty demands. Originally a billion was more or less allocated. Then the 2 billion prop up of investors in the failed SI loan company raised maori aspirations. Then several billion were found to sort the Chch earthquake. More prolific spending on the outbreak of Covid. A billion here or there is treated as private persons do maybe $5000. Then the floods.Yet more money has been sprayed about with great abandon, especially to secure the maori vote. Now another half billion squandered.
Against all that very extravagant claims will continue forever.
With money like that being spent (and it's all over the place... ) there are certain questions that come to mind and and there would be people that wouldn't like the answers or to provide them either for that matter.
All by design. No accountability, no responsibility, will walk away personally unaffected because that is the corporate system called government. It's one big club, and you ain't in it.
Both Ashley and Jacinda got a significant Honours medal. Enough said when the RATS cost was equivalent to half of the annual Pharmac budget for all New Zealanders . The sick , aged , and those with heart breaking diagnosis that are given nothing but statements that your problem is not available in the Pharmac budget
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