Anomaly of Tk22,000Cr in COVID Vaccine Purchase: TIB

Transparency International, Bangladesh (TIB) has found a lack of transparency in government spending on coronavirus vaccination. In this case, there is a difference of about 22 thousand crore taka.

TIB made this claim by presenting a research report at a virtual press conference on Tuesday (April 12). The study, titled "Good Governance in Coronavirus Crisis: Challenges of Inclusion and Transparency", was published by TIB.

Earlier, Health Minister Zahid Maleque said that the government has spent Tk 40,000 crore to buy 22 crore Covid-19 vaccine doses and for administering them.

But while presenting the report, TIB said that the maximum expenditure should not be more than tk 18,000 crore.

The health minister said that more than Tk 20,000 crore has been spent on the purchase of vaccines. The health directorate has never given details of the price at which these vaccines were purchased.

According to TIB's research, the cost of purchasing vaccines should not be more than Tk 11,000 crore. Since the government has not provided any information regarding the price of vaccines, TIB has collected information about the price of vaccines from various sources.

Mohammad Zulkarnain, a researcher at TIB, said the Covax Readiness and Delivery Working Group has developed a model for the cost of administering vaccines to low- and middle-income countries. Through this model, they have shown how the cost per vaccine can be.

Presenting the research report, he said that they have estimated the cost of vaccination in three ways - transportation, storage, recruitment of vaccinators, and all their expenses including their salaries and allowances. Considering the existing infrastructure of vaccination activities, use of manpower, and the ratio of outreach centers, they have fixed the operating cost per dose of vaccine from Tk 71.4 to Tk 224.4.

Dr Iftekharuzzaman, executive director of TIB, said there was a lack of transparency in the government's calculations on the purchase and distribution of vaccines.

He said that since the government did not provide detailed and transparent accounts of the cost of vaccination activities, they had to rely on various other reliable sources. From his analysis, we can see that the actual expenditure has been halved compared to what the health minister is talking about, according to reliable sources.

Dr Iftekharuzzaman said he did not know if the deficit was real. Since the government is not disclosing specific information, analysis of information obtained from various reliable sources shows that tk 14,000 crore to tk 17,000 crore has been spent. The reason for this discrepancy is the lack of disclosure of information and the culture of privacy.

He raises the question of whether the free flow of information is being obstructed to protect against any corruption.

According to a TIB study, 46 percent of the country's population was hesitant to get vaccinated. Seventy-five percent of people know about vaccinations from family, relatives, and neighbors. 66 percent of the vaccine recipients had to register at the stores in exchange for money.

There was no immediate reaction from the government to TIB's research report.

However, positive aspects have also emerged in the research of TIB. It said that due to the increase in coronavirus infection in the world, the government of India imposed a ban on the export of vaccines and the Serum Institute stopped supplying vaccines to Bangladesh. Due to reliance on a single source, the first dose of the vaccine has been discontinued in Bangladesh on 26 April 2021. Later the Bangladesh government started trying to collect vaccines from different sources. The mass vaccination campaign started in July 2021 with the purchase of vaccines from China through bilateral agreements, cost-sharing, or free vaccination collection from the COVAX initiative and grants from various countries.

By increasing the government's efforts to collect vaccines, it was possible to collect about 29.64 crore doses of vaccines by March 31, 2022. From the collected vaccines till March 31, 2022, about 12.77 crore people have been brought under the first dose (74.96 per cent of the total population) and 11.24 crore people under the second dose (66 per cent).

Booster doses for people over 60 were introduced on December 28, 2021, during which time about 9.5 million people were brought under the booster dose vaccine. Vaccination activities are conducted by city corporations, municipalities, union parishads, community clinics, etc. to bring people of different professions and communities under vaccination.

In addition, special programs have been taken to bring school children aged 12 to 17, students of Qawmi Madrasa, slum dwellers, and the floating population under vaccination.