Contracts, Data and Investigations – COVID-19: Edition 2020-09-25
This week’s content: Gender pay gap in Colombia’s public health sector, COVID-19 funds for defense contracts, FinCEN files, contracts for HIV drugs in Latin American
This newsletter gathers stories covering the use and abuse of government contracts during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Let us know about your stories and content. We, Sophie and Georg, would love to hear about them.
We’ve seen a lot during this pandemic, but funneling COVID-19 funds to defense contracts is tough to swallow. In the US, the Washington Post’s Aaron Gregg and Yeganeh Torbati reveal that most of a US$1 billion relief fund went to defense contractors for jet engine parts, satellite and drone surveillance technology, and body armor, instead of masks and swabs.
Colombian data journalism organizations Cuestión Pública and Datasketch analyzed more than 300,000 public hospital contracts from the last 32 months to define the gender pay gap in the public health sector. They found that for each $1000 earned by a man, a woman earns $610, a gap of 39%. The analysis builds on Colombia’s open contracting data. See how they did it in this short thread by Cuestión Pública co-founder Claudia Baez.
Emergency contracting has led to an increase in direct contracts. In Chile, they’ve doubled. Writing for CIPER, Observatorio Fiscal’s José Mora analyzes the justifications given for relying on direct awards since 2009, describing “with concern” a rise in “sole supplier" as the rationale in recent years. The full report is available here.
Living with HIV: In a regional investigation, Project PODER and Salud con Lupa, with support from GK, Muy Waso, Radio Interferencia, and La Voz de Guanacaste, have analyzed the procurement of HIV treatments in Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru. The project Vivirconvih.org reviewed 10,000 contracts between 2017 and 2019 worth a total of US$312 million. Purchases using direct contracting and local providers were found to be more expensive, and treatments aligned with international standards more efficient. Read the full report and search the interactive database at vivirconvih.org.
Abracadabra! How to make dirty money vanish: In an investigation by ICIJ, the FinCEN files explore how a global financial system enables money laundering. The main story is about how bad banks profit from transactions involving dirty money and the failure of governments to oversee private actors, but some stories illustrate why this matters for public procurement. An investigation by Uri Blau for Haaretz reveals how Israel Aerospace Industries paid $155 million to two companies linked to Azerbaijan money laundering, just after a $1.6 billion arms deal was signed with the Azeri regime. Business in countries like Venezuela relies on international banks. The Miami Herald’s Kevin Hall, Antonio Maria Delgado and Shirsho Dasgupta report on the suspicious money flows and investments linked to a large contractor for public works and social housing in Venezuela. The activities of President Maduro’s “special envoy” and dealmaker have attracted suspicion as well, finds Roberto Deniz for armando.info.
Read an interview with Joshua Olufemi, founder of Dataphyte, a Nigerian media outlet that puts data at the center of its reporting. Dataphyte also shares its data and trains journalists. “If you see data as the other most reliable source aside from personal capture of events or a primary source account of it, then you’d know how much it matters in storytelling. First, it is evidence-based. Second, it lends credibility to any story, third, it provides the opportunity to visually interpret or communicate your story using all the comparison and composition tools.”
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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