Well, for starters, a government can't pay bribes to factory owners the way deniable individuals can.You make it sound like we didn't have PPE shortages and the government did well! Trumpian!
How did an opportunist former jewelry designer "go to a factory and buy the worlds most indemand products"? Nonsense. With money, anyone with some chutzpa could push through a deal. With the full force of the UK government, we'd probably have done a better job direct.
They probably don't have any of the contacts or relationships in purchasing, packaging, shipping, etc that those who trade there daily do.
They can build that knowledge and those relationships, but it takes time. And I refuse to believe you wouldn't be criticising the govt for failing to buy that stuff if they hadn't found the means they did.
These aren't problems with our current government, they're problems with decisions and purchasing methods being controlled by governments. The private sector will always be better at this stuff and that's where it should stay.