Contracts, Data and Investigations – COVID-19: Edition 2020-08-21
This week: South Africa in the spotlight, consultancy companies and contracts in the UK, Germany and Spain, Covidão, and: Did they bite? Opportunists fishing for contracts.
This newsletter gathers stories covering the use and abuse of government contracts during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Let us know about your stories and content. We, Sophie and Georg, would love to hear about them.
South Africa has been hit hard by the pandemic. Now, a Special Investigations Unit is examining 658 cases of irregularities in coronavirus-related tenders nationwide worth 5 billion rand ($290 million). Nearly half the amount has been tied to the province of Gauteng, home to Johannesburg. Cases under investigation include PPE procurement, quarantine sites, and disinfecting equipment.
The civil society organization Outa has raised concerns over the Gauteng treasury’s Covid-19 expenditure report, including the spending of $290,000 on catering contracts, writes Andrea Chothia for The South African. After its first disclosure, the province pledged to publish monthly reports (we’d say more timely open data would be more effective).
Piet Mahasha Rampedi looks at the companies behind the contracts in northern Limpopo province in what he calls a “R 932 million mess”. Successful bidders appear to be politically connected individuals and relatives of senior officials and prominent politicians. At the Mail and Guardian, Sarah Smit and Paddy Harper dig into the network of unqualified, barely qualified, and under-capacitated companies cashing in on the PPE bonanza.
Governments worldwide have paid consultancy firms millions for advisory services while responding to the emergency. The UK’s spending on consultants totals £56 million, most of it without competition, finds the Guardian’s Rob Evans, Peter Geoghegan, David Pegg, and Russell Scott, in their latest investigation with openDemocracy. In one contract, McKinsey was paid £563,000 for six weeks’ work, or £14,000 a day.
The role of consultancies is also under scrutiny in Germany and Spain. Thorsten Mumme at Der Tagesspiegel discusses the German government’s decision to continue contracting with EY, despite investigations into the company’s role around the Wirecard scandal. For El País, Jesús Garcia reports on a probe into companies, including Deloitte and KPMG, that allegedly worked as a cartel to divvy up contracts, providing “covering offers”, and excluding competitors for the last ten years.
But does it work? In an investigation for the Washington Post, Jon Swane reveals that the US spent tens of millions on a treatment for chemical weapons exposure. But the company that makes it won’t say whether it works.
Did they get paid? In the Philippines, the Inquirer's Daphne Galvez reports that the state health insurance company owes the Red Cross about $14 million for its COVID-19 testing.
Did they bite? La Nación’s Ivan Ruíz investigates the opportunistic “hustlers and scammers” fishing for business in the midst of the pandemic.
Covidão?Operations and investigations into corruption in Covid-19 spending in Brazil are so common that they’ve earned a new nickname, reports André Shalders for BBC Brazil. Based on information by the Federal Comptroller’s office, the article includes a table of all “Covidão” stings, which add up to around $240 million.
Corruption kills. As part of its regional investigation #HuellasDeLaPandemia, journalism network CONNECTAS explores the public officials across Latin America under investigation on suspicion of taking advantage of the crisis to enrich themselves.
Aid-funded efforts to rebuild an economy after a crisis can go terribly wrong, as a government audit of a petroleum-import finance project in post-earthquake Haiti shows. Billions of dollars from Venezuela’s PetroCaribe were wasted, embezzled or mismanaged over eight years, reports Jacqueline Charles for the Miami Herald.
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 to share? Write to Sophie or Georg at media@open-contracting.org. Thanks for reading.
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