Contracts, Data and Investigations – COVID-19: Edition 2020-06-26
Opaque tech contracts, eye-watering mask prices, and sprawling patronage schemes
This newsletter gathers stories covering the use and abuse of government contracts during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Make sure to subscribe to get this newsletter to your inbox. Let us know about your stories and content. We, Sophie and Georg, would love to hear about them.
The pandemic has forced British health authorities to embrace technology, writes WIRED’s Matt Burgess. At least £52 million have gone to new technology contracts, according to data analysis by Spend Network. Some are routine, others ‘questionable,’ but overall, the crisis has exposed just how little transparency and accountability there is around NHS purchasing.
Kontrast’s Marco Pühringer examines the blurred lines between public contracts, campaign financing and political interests in Austria, revealing how a well-connected political consultant sold overpriced protective gear, despite having no experience in purchasing medical supplies, and bought ads in the party’s newspaper.
Last week, we shared a new COVID-19 contract dashboard by Kyrgyz news organization Kloop, which relies on data released by authorities. What does the data reveal about spending? Not much, finds Kloop’s Alexandra Li, who tracked down officials and hospital staff to search for answers about where the country’s planned $645 million crisis funds are going. Read the full coverage.
South Africa is reallocating funds from its budget to finance a multi-billion-rand coronavirus relief package. In a feature for Spotlight, Alicestine October explores the risks for the country and its provinces, as experts call for more transparency and procurement reforms to deter wasteful spending. In Zambia, News Diggers’ Julia Malunga exposes irregularities in a $17 million contract for health kits.
Transparency is good, but it’s not a silver bullet for stopping manipulation. One hundred days into Ukraine’s ‘quarantine procurement’, the Anti-Corruption Action Center analyzes the million-dollar corruption schemes used by the ministries of health and internal affairs, in a feature for Pravda.
In Afghanistan, Hasht-e Sobh’s Mojtaba Beigzadeh compares the contracted price of protective equipment purchased for health facilities in four of Afghanistan’s provinces with market rates, identifying huge variations. In an investigation for HuffPost India, Samarth Bansal and Aman Sethi scrutinize an order of low-cost ventilators of questionable quality.
Guyana’s Stabroek News reports on a secret contract to build an emergency hospital. While construction works began in April, the contract for the billion-dollar coronavirus facility was only approved in June and $650 million have already been paid out.
PPE purchases in Chile are being investigated for possible collusion after records revealed eye-watering price increases for certain items and a drop in competition. Data reviewed by CIPER’s Catalina Albert and Matías Jara showed the government paid $500 for masks that cost $13 before the pandemic.
ProPublica’s David McSwane files his latest dispatch from the Wild West of PPE (also check his thread on Twitter). ProPublica’s impressive coverage of procurement failures in the US continues with Yeganeh Torbati’s piece on the Indian Health Services’ attempts to return substandard KN95 masks bought from a former White House official. Dig into the federal contracts yourself with ProPublica’s interactive contract tracker, or download the emergency contracts dataset from the official Pandemic Response Accountability Committee’s contract spending tracker.
Two months after the OCCRP exposed details of murky procurement practices in Romania, authorities have opened an official investigation into allegations of bribery against the head of the state-owned coronavirus procurement company.
In Colombia, the journalism organization Cuestión Pública has launched its investigation Sabemos lo que hiciste (‘We know what you did last legislative period’). It uncovers a sprawling patronage system involving more than 50 senators, their companies, family businesses, their networks, public contracts, and private interests.
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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