Contracts, Data and Investigations: Edition 2021-07-02
This week: a look at vaccine deals in Mexico, Brazil, Albania, Nepal and the EU, COVID-19 contracts in Ecuador and the UK, and infrastructure deals gone wrong in Costa Rica and Montenegro.
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.
After a short hiatus, we’re back. Let’s start with the good, the bad, and the ugly in efforts to end secretive government contracts.
The good: G7 leaders recently highlighted the need for reliable, transparent, up-to-date and clear information on public procurement to deliver COVID-19 vaccines, to buy green, and to build quality infrastructure.
But things could be better. In Le Monde, OCP’s Gavin Hayman argues G7 countries must now act quickly to implement open contracting by publishing high-quality open data on the full cycle of procurement and all contracts, and increasing participation of civil society and businesses.
The bad: The UK government has published £4.2 billion in contracts for protective equipment a year late, finds Sam Bright for Byline Times. His colleague, John Lubbock, tries to get a better sense of how much the government actually paid for each mask, sifting through contract descriptions and figures in the annex documents.
The ugly: Germany’s transport minister isn’t the only politician to dodge questions about controversial projects, reports Der Tagesspiegel’s Fabian Löhe. But he might be the first to pay expensive lawyers to answer his freedom of information requests – seven requests, to be precise, for €175,000.
Next, a look at the vaccine contracts making headlines.
Mexico signed a contract for 35 million CanSino vaccines with a nonexistent supplier, according to an Univisión investigation led by Peniley Ramírez and Julia Frankel. The Swiss-based company was formed only after signing the Mexican contract. The firm’s president is a Mexican lawyer, currently sanctioned for a financial scheme that surfaced in the Panama Papers scandal.
In Brazil, pandemic mismanagement now extends to vaccine procurement. A $324 million vaccine contract for the Indian Covaxin has been canceled after allegations of bribery, and the health minister stepped down.
Albania will spend $20 million on vaccines, an analysis by Exit News finds, using information published on AIS’ Open Procurement platform. Prices include $12 per unit of Pfizer/BioNTech, $10 million for around 1 million Sinovac doses through a Turkish supplier, as well as $3.9 million for another 1 million doses through the COVAX Facility. An order of 50k doses of Sputnik isn’t included in the data.
AstraZeneca is now the most used vaccine globally and is being sold at cost, but the British-Swedish drug firm could charge a higher price in some low-income countries after the pandemic ends, the Guardian’s Michael Safi reports. Meanwhile, in a dispute between the manufacturer and the EU Commission, both sides claimed a victory of sorts: AstraZeneca was found guilty of breaking the contract, but the EU won’t get additional vaccines any faster.
Talking access to vaccines: India is inviting bids to deliver vaccines using drones. While the technology may be useful to supply critical equipment, most vaccines still require a functioning coldchain, making delivery more complex.
Details on the deals between countries and vaccine manufacturers remain secret. Nepal’s government had to sign a non-disclosure agreement to buy Sinopharm, Prithvi Man Shrestha reports for the Kathmandu Post, adding to the country’s disastrous vaccine rollout.
With only about 1% of people in low-income countries having received a shot, it’s clear that monitoring vaccine procurement remains critical. Our Guide provides 15 key details to request from the government – and manufacturers.
Convoca investigates Ecuador’s $664 million in COVID-19 contracts. So far authorities have opened 160 probes into wrongdoing – so many they had to set up a special task force. Convoca highlights some of the most emblematic cases, from selling illegal COVID-19 tests and masks, to overpriced medicines and hospital equipment.
There is little public information about Zimbabwe’s pandemic deals. The Zimbabwe Independent’s Melody Chikongo examines how the central government and local authorities used COVID-19 resources.
In Costa Rica, construction companies have been accused of offering bribes – cash, vehicles, land, sexual favors and more – in exchange for preferential treatment in obtaining government infrastructure contracts from the national public roads authority. Damages are estimated at $125 million as companies allegedly used defective asphalt in road projects and, through bribes, manipulated the quality tests to meet construction requirements. The scandal has been fittingly named after a local parasite, the Cochinilla.
School infrastructure in Nigeria: What happened to the 1 billion Naira budgeted by the education commission to build and renovate schools? Elijah Ojonicko Akoji’s investigation for ICIR Nigeria traces contracts to three companies to find shoddy work, at best, while most projects never even started.
We all need more music in our lives and some of the best comes from Colombia. But a $36 million contract for a new cultural center dedicated to the musical style Vallenato has attracted scrutiny for suspected links to politicians and a local business clan. While 14 companies participated in the planning processes, only one company submitted a bid, according to an investigation by Ever Mejía for La Silla Vacía.
Montenegro’s highway from “nothing to nothing”: An unfinished highway has doubled the Balkan nation’s debt and risks crippling the economy, reports NPR’S Rob Schmitz who reviewed a copy of the loan agreement.
The EU has committed to spend a massive €672.5 billion on the pandemic recovery. But almost all countries who’ve applied for the funding don’t have a plan to share information on the recipients of the funds, according to an analysis by the newly formed Open Procurement EU Coalition. Read the op-ed in Euractiv by Access Info’s Helen Darbishire and our Karolis Granickas arguing that this lack of transparency puts the monies at serious risk of corruption and misuse.
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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