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WA taxpayers are shelling out a pretty penny to keep expired rapid antigen tests (RATs) in storage – and it will cost millions more to finally dispose of them.
The state’s stockpile of nearly 20 million unused tests must be destroyed by the end of 2024 at a cost of $4 million.
WATCH VIDEO ABOVE: Washington taxpayers to foot $4 million bill to destroy expired RATs.
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Health officials appearing before parliamentary estimates on Thursday revealed the tests will be burned and converted into energy at a plant in Kwinana, in Perthis in the south.
Until then, taxpayers will foot the $75,000 monthly bill to keep them safely in storage.
RATs played an important role during the height of the pandemic by quickly detecting the spread of COVID-19.
The government says buying 110 million tests is a good investment and cannot predict how many will be needed.
IN report published in 2023Auditor General Caroline Spencer criticized the state’s approach to purchasing the tests.
Spencer said health officials initially intended to spend $3 million on tests for health workers and returning travelers, but the total has jumped to $440 million.
The Treasury also spent $140 million on RATs, bringing state government spending on the tests to about $580 million.
“Public entities have spent the equivalent of 10 percent of the state’s 2022 operating surplus on diagnostic plastics without apparent evidence of clear, thoughtful and coordinated planning or ongoing advice about the need for the spending,” Spencer said.
“I recognize the uncertainty that the pandemic has created … but I have never before witnessed such an escalation in the cost of a program in such a short period of time, occurring without proper consideration of the impacts or without a record of anyone stopping to ask what level of procurement was sufficient and whether this was achieved.
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