Contracts, Data and Investigations: Edition 2021-02-26
This week's content: vaccine contract deals in Latin America, the African Union buys Sputnik V, a court rules pro transparency in the UK + stories from Angola, Canada, Guatemala, and Nigeria
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 appreciate a like if you enjoyed the read.
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As vaccine deals continue to be carried out in secret, governments remain at a disadvantage. For The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, with support by OjoPúblico in Peru, Madlen Davies, Rosa Furneaux, Iván Ruiz, Jill Langlois report on Pfizer’s Covid vaccine negotiations in Latin America. The investigation claims the company "bullied" governments asking for immunity against future legal costs and demanded some put state assets as a guarantee. While liability discussions are part of contract negotiations, Pfizer allegedly went for additional and not typical or reasonable indemnity beyond that. A Spanish version is available on Ojo Público.
A report by Financial Times’ David Pilling and Henry Foy finds that the African Union will pay $9.75 for Russia’s Sputnik V shot. This is three times more compared to $3 a dose for the Oxford/AstraZeneca and Novavax vaccine. In good news, the African Union is starting to distribute the first 1 million vaccines to 20 countries, Devex’ Sara Jerving reports.
Transparency is no less important during a pandemic. The UK's high court has ruled that the Department of Health’s failure to publish COVID-19 contract details within the stipulated 30 days was unlawful, following a legal challenge by the Good Law Project, Alan McGuinness reports for Sky News. The judge said that "the public were entitled to see who this money was going to, what it was being spent on and how the relevant contracts were awarded.” Read the judgment in full.
It appears that Microsoft's software for registering patients and scheduling COVID-19 vaccinations doesn’t cut it either, with US state Iowa ending its deal with the company, Bloomberg’s Dina Bass and Stephen Joyce report. (We’d love to hear which software is working.)
In Guatemala, Prensa Libre’s Oscar García reports how 30,000 falsified COVID-19 tests were bought at US$1m by the ministry of health.
In Nigeria, the International Center for Investigative Reporting reports that the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has awarded an N43.5 million deal to build a COVID-19 testing center in Adamawa State to a non-existing company. ‘Kevwe Oghide shares in The Cable how young Nigerians are monitoring COVID-19 funds and tracking public contracting processes as part of a Follow the Money initiative using Freedom of Information requests and open data.
Long after many banks had broken ties with Angola’s dos Santos over questions about the source of her wealth, three of the world’s largest consulting firms – Boston Consulting Group, PwC, and McKinsey – retained their close relationship with the billionaire, writes ICIJ’s Will Fitzgibbon following new reporting by Expresso’s Micael Pereira. Each pocketed tens of millions of dollars in payments for public contracts routed through an obscure Dubai shell company owned by a personal friend of dos Santos, according to documents seen by Expresso and SIC.
A need for more inclusive procurement policies: In an in-depth investigation for Global News, Elizabeth McSheffrey, Emma Wilkie of the Institute for Investigative Journalism, and Angel Moore investigate how Canada’s First Nation water infrastructure is managed, finding that Indigenous water operators are left behind, overworked, and underpaid. They also found that a C$16m deal with a company to fix water treatment infrastructure for Neskantaga Nation was canceled due to continued delays. See the full investigation Clean Water, Broken Promises. First Nations leaders interviewed said the government’s procurement policies didn’t enable them to select the firm they wanted for projects.
We have put together the 8 main reasons why vaccine procurement — from the purchase agreement with the manufacturer to the cold chain distribution of the doses to providing the needles and vials for the shot — should be open.
For our recommendations, resources and tools, check our COVID-19 resource page. Our friends at the GIJN have pulled together some tips and tricks for investigating public procurement. This newsletter has been put together by the Open Contracting Partnership. Comments? Suggestions? Got a story you’ve written to share? Write to Georg at gneumann@open-contracting.org. Thanks for reading.
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