Brazil is set to suspend a $324 million Covaxin contract, a deal to buy 20 million doses of Bharat Biotech’s Indian COVID-19 vaccine, due to President Jair Bolsonaro being accused of allegations of irregularities. This comes after whistleblowers went public with the alleged irregularities.
A former employee at the health ministry, according to The Guardian, told the prosecutor’s office that he told the president that he was pressured to sign a contract that would increase the average price of doses by 1,000%.
The Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga, at a news conference, said his team would investigate the allegations during the suspension. “According to the preliminary analysis, there are no irregularities in the contract but, for compliance, the health ministry chose to suspend the contract,” the ministry said in a statement. As such, the Brazilian federal prosecutors have opened an investigation into the deal citing comparatively high prices, quick talks and pending regulatory approvals as red flags. It is also being scrutinized by a senate panel investigating the government’s handling of the pandemic.
Moreover, the report says that one of the leading opposition senators on that panel filed a formal criminal complaint against Bolsonaro at the Supreme Court on Monday. Senator Randolfe Rodrigues told The Guardian he wanted the court to investigate the serious allegations and to find out why Bolsonaro did not take any action after being notified of the existence of a giant corruption scheme in the health ministry.
Reuters had highlighted in February this year that the ministry had published new rules dispensing with the bidding process to speed up the buying of vaccines and deal with the third biggest coronavirus outbreak in the world after the United States and India.
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However, the absence of late-stage trial results raised criticism that right-wing Bolsonaro’s government is cutting corners to make up for a slow roll-out of vaccines in Brazil, where more than a quarter of a million people have died of COVID-19. Epidemiologists also criticized Bharat Biotech saying that the vaccine was approved too hastily for emergency use.
