NEW YORK — New York City authorities have auctioned off surplus medical devices and protective products that were purchased with public money in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic for rock-bottom prices, the newspaper reported Tuesday. local media The City.
The outlet publishes an investigation into the auctions carried out by the new local administration of Eric Adams since last summer and points out that so far numerous supplies have been sold for only $500,000 that at the peak of the pandemic, when they were in short supply, cost the city 224 million.
Among those supplies, he cites some 3,000 respirators that then-mayor Bill de Blasio ordered to be manufactured and cost 12 million dollars, which were never used and were auctioned this January for 24,600 dollars – after being classified as “junk” that “does not work” – to a Long Island (New York) company.
The City cites a spokesperson for the local department of administrative services (DCAS), which handles the auctions, as saying the spending came at a time of crisis with the goal of creating a 90-day stockpile of products, and part of the surplus has been donated to NGOs and to various countries.
The outlet attributes the current sale of balances to former mayor de Blasio hampering the supervision of contracts to deal with the first wave of COVID-19 and suggests that the city paid millions for defective goods or products that were not even manufactured, in addition to shelling out inflated prices.
