Contracts, Data and Investigations: Edition 2021-07-23
This week: South Asia vaccine costs, wealthy countries’ Covid contract blunders, deep dives into deals in Kenya and Costa Rica
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.
Vaccine access and costs vary widely across South Asia, with Chinese manufacturers pressing for non-disclosure agreements and some stark differences between public and private markets. Himal Southasian provides insights into the prices per dose from what has been disclosed.
With a public service “ill-prepared for big challenges,” Australia has contracted out much of its vaccination program to private companies. But it’s unclear what these “program delivery partners” are actually doing while the rollout remains slow, writes Lesley Russell for The Conversation.
In Germany, a company from Hamburg scored recommendation letters from the health ministry for its “high-quality and certified FFP2 masks from China” – despite not having sold any masks and only being created a few days earlier. The revelation was part of an investigation into the purchase and distribution of substandard masks from DER SPIEGEL’s Jürgen Dahlkamp, Gunther Latsch and Sven Röbel. In better news, the ministry of the economy will support Germany’s states with €200m to help schools and daycares buy mobile air filters. We hope to see these tenders.
In Kenya, Jacqueline Wahome describes her efforts to investigate the deals involving global security company G4S – apparently one of the largest government contractors in countries like Kenya and South Africa – for The Elephant. She only finds two contracts in the country’s official tender portal. The effort it took her to write the story shows how badly enforcement of the Access to Information Act is needed, she writes.
In Canada, Ontario has likely lost a C$10m deposit on a deal for an unproven, yet to be delivered Covid testing “miracle cube” – the C$80m sole-source contract has become “a sinkhole for public money and a cautionary tale about lobbying, political influence and the perils of moving too quickly, even when quick action is required”, writes The Toronto Star’s Richard Warnica.
In Costa Rica, La Voz de Guanacaste’s Yamlek Mojica investigates a road paving contract with a company involved in the Cochinilla construction scandal – one of the largest corruption cases in the country’s history. The firm is suspected of paying bribes to the national road authority CONAVI to disqualify a competitor and secure an asphalt bid.
Lebanon approved a new public procurement law on 30 June to increase transparency and competition. Read an interview with Institut des Finances Basil Fuleihan’s Lamia Moubayed, who was tasked with its development, and an analysis of what it means for key issues such as transparency, beneficial ownership, and civil society monitoring, by the Lebanese Transparency Association, the local Transparency International chapter.
Our COVID-19 Contract Data Explorer now includes information on $450m worth of deals from the Dominican Republic and $16.6m from Kosovo. Check it out here and let us know what you find.
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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