COVID-19: UK will be exposed to financial risks for decades due to its pandemic spending

British government will be exposed to financial risks for decades from its 372 billion pound pandemic spending, according to lawmakers’ reports on Sunday. In two discreet reports, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) disclosed that approximately two billion pounds have been spent only on unusable protective equipment. This gigantic spending, as per the committee, poses multiple risks to taxpayers and businesses. As an example of ongoing financial risks, PAC highlighted an estimated loss of 26 billion pounds through fraud and repayment default from loans handed to businesses to help cope with the pandemic.

'Eye-watering sums' of money

In addendum, the parliamentary committee also asserted that the Boris Johnson administration needs to learn lessons and rectify its mistakes before a formal inquiry into the same could be held in 2022. "With eye-watering sums of money spent on COVID measures so far the government needs to be clear, now, how this will be managed going forward, and over what period of time," Meg Hillier, the PAC chair, said.

"The ongoing risk to the taxpayer will run for 20 years on things like arts and culture recovery loans, let alone the other new risks that departments across government must quickly learn to manage,” it added.

In a second report, PAC highlighted that there had also been "unacceptably high" levels of wasteful spending during the period of the pandemic. It is imperative to note that amidst plunging revenue, the Boris Johnson administration borrowed a whopping 299 billion pounds during the first year of the pandemic, that is, from April 2020 to 2021. According to BBC, the figure is expected to be less this financial year, but still, it would be more than 200 billion.

Elaborating further on the government’s unnecessary spending, PAC said nearly 2.1 billion items of unsuitable personal protective equipment (PPE) were purchased, equating to more than 2 billion pounds of public money. But, officials defended it saying that only 0.84 per cent of all PPE had been found to be unusable and that it plans to “repurpose” all the equipment which cannot be used as health equipment.

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