Gavin paid $500M for Chinese masks upfront. They may never arrive

Posted on April 19, 2020 5:51 am

Gavin paid $500M for Chinese masks upfront. They may never arrive

Sacramento Bee

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration doesn’t plan to show lawmakers and the public a nearly $1 billion mask contract until it has “assurance the supply is going to be arriving,” despite already having wired half of the money, an administration official testified Thursday.

“We have concerns about releasing too many details about it because our goal is to get the supply into California for the people who need it,”

Christina Curry, chief deputy director of the governor’s Office of Emergency Services, told lawmakers during a budget hearing.

“As you can imagine with something in such high demand and with such high interest, there are a lot of things that could come into play to definitively disrupt that… We do intend to provide that once we have assurances the supply is going to be arriving.”

States have struggled to buy enough masks to protect their essential workers during the coronavirus pandemic and have been competing against one another on the open market. Newsom said last week that he had already “inked” the agreement to secure 200 million masks per month, mostly N95 masks thought to be most effective in preventing coronavirus transmission.

He said that will be enough to fill California’s needs, and perhaps enough to help other states, as well.

Chinese company BYD is producing the masks, which medical workers treating COVID-19 patients need to supplement a dwindling supply.

State Treasurer Fiona Ma said her office vetted the request to send the money before wiring $495 million to Global Healthcare Product Solutions, LLC, a subsidiary of BYD, last week.

Normally, government contracts require the state to pay after it has received the materials it ordered, but the BYD contract required a nearly half-billion dollar payment upfront, said H.D. Palmer, spokesman for Newsom’s Finance Department.

Curry did not explain during the hearing how disclosing the contract would jeopardize the mask shipments.

“I must confess I have not much confidence in (the masks) being delivered,” Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber, told the governor’s office during the hearing.

“At the least, we cannot be throwing out a false hope to people, but there’s a lot of money in this too. So please do understand, there is not an expectation but a demand that that contract become available.”

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Chuckiechan
Chuckiechan
2 years ago

This is why California will never consent to an audit. Every time a tax dollar moves, some crony is getting vig.

FOAD
FOAD
2 years ago
Reply to  Chuckiechan

Lol

Romy Swillman
Romy Swillman
2 years ago

Don’t Blame Me, You’re the Idiot who Voted for Him.

Hal Slusher
Hal Slusher
2 years ago

Only a democrat would trust the Chinese.

CAdumpsterfire
CAdumpsterfire
2 years ago

Haven’t seen or heard of any state employees making over 150k taking a reduction in pay.

jan567
jan567
2 years ago

Compared to this boondoggle, Newsom’s handout to illegals is starting to look like chump change…

B B
B B
2 years ago

This POS
ucking Californians again

FOAD
FOAD
2 years ago

This raises another question, why give the money to a Chicomm company with no N95 experience. Why? Why damnit. Why!? Why not an American company Ford, GM, hell Subaru for fks sake.. Not Chicomm enough for your liking? They don’t have manufacturing capacity for N95 masks either. He needs to be beat over the head with this until transparency IS achieved and his ancestors feel his pain.

MDP
MDP
2 years ago

‘This is the wild Wild West.’ Gavin Newsom says more transparency could imperil mask deal.

The headline from the Sacramento Bee-https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article242113051.html

Newsom and his co-conspirators in government pass laws for transparency for everyone else, but not for the well connected political class.

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Michael F Dougherty
2 years ago

“They may never arrive.” BYD is a $14 billion / year vehicle manufacturer with its sights set on selling California a lot of electric buses. I’m sure they think that they are helping out by supplying the masks and this may just give them a competitive over other bus manufactures in the future. (Brilliant strategy.) This puts the risk factor of this mask deal at near zero. BTW, they are really good at copying Mercedes Benz cars for the Chinese market.

FOAD
FOAD
2 years ago

A Chicomm company with no N 95 mask manufacturing capacity. Yeah what could possibly go wrong? In December 2018, the Albuquerque council filed a lawsuit against BYD for “issues including bolts falling off doors, doors opening on their own and battery range issues”.[48] BYD disputed the city’s allegations and disputed Mayor Tim Keller’s “false and misleading statements.” [49] The lawsuit was settled with no money changing hands. A joint statement was issued in May 2019.[50]
Since 2017, BYD has been negatively impacted by a reduction of subsidies that were granted by the Chinese government.

Michael F Dougherty
2 years ago
Reply to  FOAD

Most of the critical components for making 3M N95 masks are also made in China. When Trump prohibited 3M from exporting some N95 masks to Canada and Latin America, 3M came close to cancelling importing 160 million + N95 masks from China. Yes, BYD has had some issues with its buses but all big companies in high tech manufacturing also do. Look how people rip into Tesla.

FOAD
FOAD
2 years ago

https://www.newsweek.com/40-pennsylvania-workers-lived-work-month-making-coronavirus-ppe-health-care-professionals-1498922

Really! Here’s a story about N95 mask components made in Pennsylvania. Think about it, your asking that we spend our tax dollars on a Chinese communist state run company. Not an American company that makes the same thing here. All your doing is defending your point, which does not create American jobs and strengthening our PPE supply chain. The Chinese communist state can no longer be trusted with anything infrastructure related ever again.

FOAD
FOAD
2 years ago

Betty Yee has paid over 49 million bills ( the number of bills! Not dollars ) and refuses an open accounting. Where is the money going? The state has refused to tell anyone.
1 billion on masks to a Chicomm company is just a drop in the bucket. If it weren’t Gov. Newsom wouldn’t have paid 500,000,000 dollars up front so easily to a Chicomm run company. The same Chicomms that have said they will withhold life saving medications and devices from the US. But Fiona Ma vetted them so it’s all good.
Nothing to see here.

Piglet
Piglet
2 years ago
Reply to  FOAD

It’s the money paid by CalCom politicians for their ChiCom masters not to Burn Notice them

Ron92646
Ron92646
2 years ago

I’d rather have DJT negotiate with the Chinese than Newsum. This is just one example of many why.

showandtell
showandtell
2 years ago
Reply to  Ron92646

But why was Gruesome involved over there in the first place instead of tasking locals with mask production? THAT is the question…

MeBeJP
MeBeJP
2 years ago

Of course, Newsome paid upfront. Minus the 14% commission he paid himself, he pocketed $70 Million.

showandtell
showandtell
2 years ago
Reply to  MeBeJP

At the moment it looks like Gov’s world is disintegrating around him but I guess we’ll see.
These people tend to always bounce back and live on to kill again, like the boogieman in a horror movie. A lot of us are feeling like we’ve seen this movie a billion times already. Starting to get old 🙂

John Steele
John Steele
2 years ago

He’s propping up his comrades economy at the expense of ours. What a loser. Who pays up front for anything. Hey, it’s not my money !! I’ll just raise taxes again to cover the half a billion $$$ loss.

billy bob
billy bob
2 years ago

I could see hiding them from federal confiscation .So where did the money really go ?

John Steele
John Steele
2 years ago
Reply to  billy bob

Federal confiscation ??… REALLY ?? clearly your a democrat. !!

billy bob
billy bob
2 years ago
Reply to  John Steele

Clearly you’re an idiot.