Contracts, Data and Investigations: Edition 2021-07-09
This week: Secret vaccine contracts, energy reform profiteers in Mexico, Spain’s Big Four deals, and back to proper supervision of New York City’s deals?
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.
We have been left wondering what the "real and substantial risk" to Australia’s national security would be from releasing the details of a contract for hundreds of millions of vaccines. But this was the response to a public information request by the ABC’s Paul Farrell. Similar contracts are already publicly available in the EU and the US.
Fancy a list of 40 controversies in Australian politics? An analysis by The Guardian’s Christopher Knaus, Nick Evershed, Rafqa Touma and Natasha May found a proposed anti-corruption commission wouldn’t have the mandate to investigate nearly 40 public scandals, including dubious government contracts. They also revealed – absent any anti-corruption body – only about half of the controversies led to formal investigations or consequences for those involved.
Bosnia’s vaccine contract with China's Sinopharm to procure half a million COVID doses has also been deemed confidential following a freedom of information request, Nermina Kuloglija reports for Balkan Insights.
As highly transmissible variants fuel a spike in COVID-19 cases in many countries, the COVAX vaccine roll-out has been slow and wealthy nations are failing to meet their commitments. Only 20% of pledged donations from the US have been delivered, delayed in part by negotiations over indemnification language, Politico’s Erin Banco reports. One person done waiting for COVAX is the head of Africa’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, who announced the first doses from a large deal secured through the African-led AVATT venture would arrive in the coming weeks, according to Politico’s Ashleigh Furlong.
Live wire: An in-depth investigation by Isabella Cota and Adam Williams for El Pais and CONNECTAS explores the obscure profiteers of Mexico’s recently liberalized energy market. It finds a US company that, just months after being created, began winning multimillion-dollar contracts from a subsidiary of Mexico’s Federal Electricity Commission. In one contract, the firm agreed to supply a shockingly large volume of natural gas, between 15 to 20% of Mexico’s daily import demand (en español).
Excess in the City? New York’s comptroller has sued the city and its mayor in a bid to regain oversight of pandemic spending. Mayor de Blasio has repeatedly extended emergency rules – over 100 times – allowing city agencies to disburse $6.9 billion in taxpayer money “without proper supervision,” The New York Times’s Luis Ferré-Sadurní reports.
The Big Four consultancy companies pocketed €83m in public contracts in Spain during the last year, according to an analysis by Confilegal’s Telmo Avalle. PwC topped the list with €29.1m, ahead of Deloitte with €24.1m, and KPMG with €19.2m.
Giving the public access to information on vaccine programs is key to building and maintaining trust. Find out what details should be made available in our new guide. Covering 15 priority pieces of information that should be shared along the vaccine procurement cycle, the guide provides in-depth context and examples of what the key issues around vaccine contracting are, and why public disclosure matters.
Join our launch event on 14 July.
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 Georg at gneumann@open-contracting.org. Thanks for reading.
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