Last night, via Plus-Minus (docu-news program on German public TV, ARD), they ran this 10-minute story, which is kinda interesting.
Back in March of this year (2020), the German Health Ministry said that a crisis was starting up with Covid-19 and Germany DID NOT have an adequate amount of masks for people. They wanted this responsibility to be a federal government thing.
So the Health Ministry opened up what they call a 'open-house' procedure. It meant....they gave out contracts to 738 logistical companies to get masks....amounting to around 6.4-billion Euro.
Yeah, it's a bit of money, and the funding side of this is awful questionable. But contracts were issued.
Somewhere in the midst of this....some companies (maybe they weren't that smart) procured at a rate that was higher than the government was willing to pay. This wasn't answered very well by Plus-Minus journalists. Lets just say that over a billion in excess....exists, in terms of masks/cost.
The pricing business by the Health Ministry? It's a big question mark, and the audit folks are asking how they arrived at their pricing and how realistic it really is.
At least 57 'dealers' are now lined up with the court system, and demanding to be paid. In some cases, they are sitting on warehouses, with tons of pallets of masks sitting there, and the path of distribution and payment is questionable now.
A lot of these masks made outside of the Europe? Well....yeah, that's part of the story as well. A lot were made in China.
In one of the stories told in this episode.....the purchaser (a German) had 70 tractor-trailers loaded with masks to make the journey from China to Germany. She's got an entire warehouse....just sitting there, and waiting for her payment and the distribution plan. One truck unloaded....69 loads just sitting there with no plan/no payment.
Where all of this is leading to? It appears that a legal action will occur, and the judge is going to eventually come around to the Health Ministry and order them to pay off the dealers and relieve them of the storage burden. This means that the Health Ministry will have to go out and procure massive warehousing (probably the size of forty soccer-fields), and have tons of negativity dumped upon them for masks just sitting there.
I will say this....as long as they can order people to wear the masks.....the emergency and potential usage of the warehouse masks will continue. If and when the vaccine arrives....the need for the masks dissipates rather quickly. The odds of twenty massive warehouses of masks just sitting there at the end, a billion Euro worth of masks....without purpose? Well....yeah, that's the amusing side of this story.
I should add this.....the cost of renting temporary warehouses upon the dealers? Oh....well, the court will order the government to cover that storage. So, we aren't really at the end of this mess on cost yet....there's more to come. If this were me, I'd take 300 tractor trailer loads of the masks, and accept them (pay for it)....then route them to African countries as a donation deal. The longer you sit on them....the more the storage costs will be.
It's a funny problem, if you think about it. It's also a serious cost problem, if you think about it. Luckily they didn't order 25-million toilet seats from China.
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