Contracts, Data and Investigations – Edition 2021-10-22
This week: Champions pushing for procurement reforms, South Africa’s COVID-19 deals, public works in Guatemala, Chinese mask donations to Latin America
This newsletter gathers stories covering the use and abuse of government contracts during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Share your stories and investigations with us. We’d love to read and feature them. And we’d love a like if you enjoyed the read.
We’ve talked a lot about abuse of public procurement in this newsletter. But it’s worth sharing the stories of those working to change the status quo. Alex Macbeth, writing for us, profiled some of the champions pushing for reforms in Nigeria, Tanzania, and South Africa on The Africa Report. Elsewhere, Politico’s Jillian Deutsch and Anna Isaac write about the negotiator behind the EU’s vaccine procurement, Sandra Gallina, and her next big challenge.
Daily Maverick’s Mark Heywood has exposed the questionable dealings between the South African police and the company Red Roses Africa, who won more than R500-million (US$ 35m) in contracts to supply masks, hand sanitizers and disinfectants to police stations across the country, with an estimated mark-up on some items as high as 600%. They made some surprising discoveries digging into the beneficiaries behind one of South Africa’s largest pandemic deals. Hint: it includes Porsches and Montblanc watches. Certainly, la vie en rose.
An analysis of South Africa’ s National Treasury data by civil society organization Corruption Watch gives a sense of just how much price gouging on PPE has really happened. Kavisha Pillay writes about the findings for the Daily Maverick, revealing gross inflation of prices, wasteful expenditure and possible corruption.
Guatemala’s Ojo con mi Pisto has been digging into municipal infrastructure investments. A US$2.8 million road was built without drainage, leading to an overspend of US$1 million, writes Isaias Morales. There are other reports on public works projects running over budget or schedule.
The US Government Accountability Office has reviewed 51,000 awards related to the pandemic response worth $347 billion. One in three contracts (worth $33 billion) had meaningless descriptions, making it difficult to know how the money was used. With the US’ pandemic relief response totalling $5 trillion, it’s not an encouraging finding.
While booster shots are being discussed in developed countries, the roll-out of the first vaccines in developing countries continues to be slow. It doesn’t help that manufacturers like Pfizer dictate the terms. Canada’s Citizen, a consumer watchdog group, summarizes what we know about the sway manufacturers have in such negotiations. In Colombia, a former public official who leads an anti-corruption NGO, Camilo Enciso, has faced a barrage of intimidation for sharing Pfizer contract documents that were accidentally published by the government. His critics say the disclosure might trigger the company to stop delivery. Enciso’s supporters argue the revelation was in the public interest and question how such a “seller-takes-it-all” contract was agreed to in the first place. Sarah Laraze and Maurizio Guerrero have the full story for In These Times.
In his newsletter Data is Plural, Jeremy Singer-Vine shares work by political scientists Diego Telias and Francisco Urdinez who have collected and mapped data on on 530+ donations of face masks, respirators, COVID-19 tests, and other pandemic-related supplies from entities in China and Taiwan to 33 countries Latin America and the Caribbean in early 2020. The dataset indicates the donor, recipient, date, and equipment types, amounts, and estimated value. Read more: Telias and Urdinez’s preprint analyzing the data.
Of course, we can’t fail to mention the usual stories coming out of the UK while we’re waiting for the government to finally release all of the contracts awarded through the “VIP” fast track lanes. Metro’s Josh Layton writes about purchases of gowns and goggles that were unsuitable for the local market, in total 1.8 million items that were part of a £98.7 million order for protective clothing. An attempt to resell the supplies through a NATO e-market failed.
In Kyrgyzstan, a new API and dashboard is facilitating data analysis of the country’s public contracts. Media organization Kloop provides an introduction. Take a look at the general dashboard, the section on medicines and the API.
In an op-ed for Thomson Reuters Foundation News, our Executive Director Gavin Hayman writes: “Open, accountable, data-driven procurement will improve every element of this spending. It will be vital to fostering economic innovation, inclusion and rebuilding our devastated small business sector. We can’t afford to pour trillions into the same leaky systems as we look to rebuild our economies, and tackle climate change, insecurity and inequality.”
For our recommendations, resources and tools, check our COVID-19 resource page. This newsletter has been put together by the Open Contracting Partnership. Comments? Suggestions? Got a story you’ve written to share? Write to Sophie and Georg at gneumann@open-contracting.org. Thanks for reading.
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