The extent of Dan Andrews' blundering during the pandemic has been laid bare in a damning report that found an extraordinary squandering of taxpayer money.
While the man dubbed 'Chairman Dan' locked down Melbourne, his cronies wasted just under $200 million on dodgy face masks while spending $27 a pop on hand sanitiser.
Among a litany of funding mistakes found in a report by the Victorian Auditor-General, tabled in State Parliament on Wednesday, was Mr Andrews' health and jobs departments 'cannot be certain that material fraud or corruption did not occur'.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has been described as a 'blunderball' by insiders for his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic
Despite brutal lockdowns, Victoria was unable to contain the spread of Delta
The body of an elderly resident is taken away from the Epping Gardens aged care facility outside of Melbourne last year after Covid-19 broke loose from hotel quarantine
Both departments had already been condemned by an independent watchdog for their handling of Victoria's botched hotel quarantine scheme, which saw more than 800 elderly Victorians die last year and no-one take responsibility.
The latest audit examined how departments managed their spending in response to Covid-19, with a view to reflect on how they might improve their preparedness for future crises.
Auditor-General Andrew Greaves found the Andrews' government spent $4.4 billion up to June last year responding to the pandemic.
By then, just 20 people had died from the virus.
Those numbers would skyrocket over the coming months, with Victoria on Thursday recording 25 deaths in the outbreak’s deadliest day, with 1923 new cases also emerging.
Most departments had gaps in how they used their critical incident process for COVID-19 procurement, such as poor documentation and inadequate consideration of conflicts of interest.
Victoria's Health Department, which at the time of the outbreak was headed by Minister Jenny Mikakos, wasted a whopping $172 million on protective gear that was not fit for purpose, the audit found.
Ms Mikakos would resign in September last year after Mr Andrews put the blame on her for his disastrous hotel quarantine efforts.
'Not all departments effectively managed their spending leading to waste in some instances.' Mr Greaves concluded.
Despite word Covid-19 was likely to hit our shores months in advance, Mr Andrews was still caught on the hop, with his bean counters found to have underestimated the cost of the pandemic response to taxpayers by a sensational $800 million.
When Covid hit, a panicked Justice Department was paying up to $27 a bottle for hand sanitiser while other departments were buying it for a little over $3.
Usual processes designed to keep the public's servants on the straight and narrow were tossed out the window.
In a damning reflection of a taxpayer's fears coming to fruition, Mr Andrews' Jobs Department - still headed by Minister Martin Pakula today - and the Health Department were found to have been more than a little loose with available funds.
The audit found a senior executive staff member was hired by the Health Department for a year on a salary of $594,595 after it used a single quote rather than a traditional recruitment process.
Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton's health department came under fire for the way it spent taxpayer dollars early in the outbreak
Daniel Andrews' government wasted millions on protective gear that wasn't fit for purpose
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and former Health Minister Jenny Mikakos in September last year. She would resign shortly after
