By He was directly recommended by the White House task force- New York Govt
United States’ President, Donald Trump, Monday, tweeted that ‘Ford and General Motors’ should “start making ventilators”, which had become necessary as emergency rooms in New York and across the country were filled with coronavirus patients.
One of the thousands of replies the tweet attracted struck an equally urgent tone from Yaron oren-Pines, an electrical engineer in Silicon Valley.
Yaron, a specialist in mobile phone technology, with no apparent experience in government contracting or medical devices wrote in response to Trumps Tweet;
“We can supply ICU Ventilators, invasive and noninvasive. Have someone call me URGENT.”
Three days later, New York state paid Oren-Pines $69.1 million.
The payment was for $1, 450 ventilators-at an astonishing $47, 656 per ventilators.
However, not a single ventilator has arrived.
A state official, speaking on background as he was not authorized to publicly discuss the terms of the deal, said New York entered into the contract with Oren at the direct recommendation of the White House coronavirus task force.
Nearly a month later, New York has terminated the contract while trying to recover all of the money paid to the Silicon Valley electrician engineer.
Oren-Pines, when contacted on phone, said “neither me nor my company is providing any comment on this”.
