![]() The Office of Legislative Audits, which is conducting a review of the emergency purchases the state has made since the pandemic began, told lawmakers this week that it too has struggled to get information from DGS and the Health department. Lawmakers were largely dissatisfied with the responses they received from the head of the Department of General Services, which handled the procurement on behalf of the Department of Health.īut it is unclear what action, if any, legislators will take. Pinsky’s panel held a public hearing over the summer after concerns began to surface about the South Korean tests and a controversial PPE contract the state entered into with Blue Flame LLC, a newly-formed firm with ties to two Republican political operatives. “The governor was on TV - national TV and local TV - lauding this great success of these Korean tests and how they were going to save lives - and it was a sham,” Pinsky said. So if someone tries something and it doesn’t work, I think we have to give them some space for that.”īut he said the whole episode has been marked by a failure to disclose important information. Pinsky (D-Prince George’s), the chairman of the Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee, said, “We’re in a period where there’s a lot of trial and error. “I think this is another case of where the coverup is worse than the crime.” “People would have given them some leeway back in May had they had been forthright with some of the challenges they had with trying to procure these tests,” Lam said. Lam (D-Howard), said the administration could have “moved past” the issue “fairly quickly” if the obstacles had been disclosed in real time. The book describes the challenges he and other governors faced battling both the pandemic and a White House whose response has been widely panned.įranchot and the other critics who spoke out on Thursday said they had great sympathy for the panicky environment officials in Maryland and other states found themselves in as they clawed for supplies, tests and ventilators.īut they said it would have been far better if Hogan had been more candid about the issues that arose with the first set of test kits. Hogan’s purchase of the South Korean tests in April made international headlines, drew criticism from President Trump and is featured prominently in the governor’s new memoir, “Still Standing: Surviving Cancer, Riots, a Global Pandemic, and the Toxic Politics That Divide America.” Kopp (D) on the three-person Board of Public Works. ![]() “And I would support the legislature and other folks continuing to review and audit exactly what happened to the first batch of 500,000 tests.”Īn announced candidate for governor in 2022, Franchot serves alongside Hogan and Treasurer Nancy K. “I’m concerned about the fact that there was a lack of transparency and accountability and openness as far as describing what exactly happened to the tests,” Franchot said in an interview. Franchot (D) at the Board of Public Works meeting Wednesday, were seen as undercutting the governor’s steadfast defense of a purchase he and his wife Yumi Hogan spent weeks negotiating. Schrader’s comments, elicited during questioning from Comptroller Peter V.R. They were using them all over the country. As recently as last month he told MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, “They worked great. The first batch of test kits were replaced, but only after the state forked over an additional $2.5 million.Īlthough he told WBAL-TV (Channel 11) investigative reporter Jayne Miller about the swap during a phone interview in July, Hogan has vigorously rejected even the suggestion of a problem with the tests. 20 that the tests could not easily be used because the instructions and materials they came with did not match those given emergency authorization by the Food and Drug Administration. Schrader said nearly all of the 500,000 tests that Seoul-based LabGenomics sold to the state for $9.5 million last spring were returned to the manufacturer unused. In testimony before the Board of Public Works on Wednesday, acting Maryland Health Secretary Dennis R. Instead, Democratic state lawmakers and the state’s comptroller said on Thursday that the governor’s stubborn defense of the tests created an environment of suspicion.
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