Contracts, Data and Investigations: Edition 2021-02-12
This week's content: Coronavirus deals in the UK, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria & Nicaragua; red flags in Guatemala; France turns to consultancies for support; a guide on where to look in vaccine 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.
In the latest twist, the UK government doesn’t seem to be sure where billions of pounds of PPE are located and have hired a consultancy firm to help them find out, reports The Guardian’s Rajeev Syal. For BBC’s File on 4, Phil Kemps investigates what the government got for the £12.5 billion it spent on PPE for the NHS, highlighting concerns about the quality of what was bought (listen to the story here). Jane Clinton for iNews reports that the surgical gowns bought in a £70m deal the government bought from a Florida jeweler via a Spanish middleman for NHS use have been withdrawn over packaging concerns.
In Ukraine, a vaccine deal has turned sour as the national anti-corruption body has launched an investigation into the use of an intermediary to purchase the Chinese vaccine Sinovac at $18 per dose. The Atlantic Council’s Pavlo Kovtoniuk has the background on the tensions between the medical procurement agency and the ministry of health.
Julius Otieno reports for The Star on the auditor general’s latest report that analyzes US$70m in emergency procurement by Kenya’s counties finding irregularities including purchases without contracts in 4 counties and 12 counties that hand-picked suppliers via direct awards.
South Africa’s Special Investigations Unit has shared preliminary findings of its investigations into the abuse of emergency procurement, finding evidence of tax fraud, the use of shell companies to win multiple contracts, and instances of price inflation of up to 500%. The investigation will be completed within the next 6 months, Reuters reports.
In Nigeria, The Cable’s Amadin Uyi tracks what happened to funds used to produce spots for awareness-raising campaigns worth US$45k that never aired, part of the package in emergency funding by the International Monetary Fund.
In Nicaragua, where the government has been downplaying the pandemic, a Connectas investigation by Nicaragua No Calla investigates US$10m in deals by the government, some of which went to companies linked to public officials.
Tracking red flags in emergency procurement: the Guatemalan organization Diálogos has developed a dashboard tracking red flags. Isabel Reyes shares insights analyzing competition in the purchases of the Ministry of Health, including whether open procedures were used (in 2% of the cases), number of bidders, and tender duration (the majority were open just 1 or 2 days). You can access the dashboard here.
In France, the big consultancy firms have taken over, write Elisa Braun and Paul de Villepin for POLITICO analyzing data on nearly 600 contracts since 2018. McKinsey leads the share of recent contracts signed with six firms for COVID-19 related projects including strategy, logistics, and IT projects, with €4 million out of a total of over €11 million going to the leading consulting firm alone.
For the Global Investigative Journalism Network, Toby McIntosh has written up a short how-to guide on what to look for when investigating COVID-19 vaccine contracts.
And the International Center for Journalists has honored the best coverage of the pandemic in 5 languages. Some we’ve covered in the newsletter including Dataphyte’s story using open contracting data but do check out the stories in Arabic by Khaoula Boukrim on Tunisia for ARIJ and Haidy Hamdi on Egypt for Dostor. For stories on emergency procurement, review the Transparency, Crime and Corruption category.
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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