Brazil vaccine purchase scandal grows: middleman claims government demanded bribe of $ 1 per dose

The Brazilian press on Tuesday revealed new allegations of corruption in the negotiation and purchase of COVID-19 vaccines, increasing pressure on Jair Bolsonaro’s government and its handling of the pandemic.

According to the newspaper Sao Paulo sheet, Health Ministry logistics chief Roberto Ferreira Dias demanded a bribe of $ 1 per dose to a representative of Davati Medical Supply, which is said to have negotiated the sale of 400 million AstraZeneca vaccines to the government.

The alleged representative, Luiz Paulo Dominguetti Pereira, assured that the arrangement, proposed in February, had been rejected by his company.

Shortly after the publication of these allegations, the Ministry of Health said in a statement quoted by the media that the logistics chief allegedly involved in the bribery attempt will be removed from his post on Wednesday.

The Anglo-Swedish laboratory AstraZeneca denied for its part, in a press release cited by the portal G1, use intermediaries to deal with governments.

Davati, based in the United States, said he had been contacted by a representative in Brazil to help with the purchase of vaccines and sent a proposal to Brasilia to secure the acquisition, but that there is no had no formal response.

According to Dominguetti Pereira, an alleged representative, the Brazilian official demanded illegal payments from him during a dinner in Brasilia in February. “To work in the ministry, you have to come to terms with the group,” said Ferreira Dias.

The case revealed by leaf joins other complaints of irregularities examined by a parliamentary committee (ICC) set up by the Senate to investigate the failure of the official response to the pandemic, which has already killed more than half a million people in the Brazil.

It’s a “strong complaint.” We will summon Mr. Luiz Paulo Dominguetti Pereira to testify before the commission next Friday“Tweeted Senator Omar Aziz, President of the ICC.

Another health ministry official said last week that in March he detected any irregularities in the contract for the acquisition of the Indian vaccine Covaxin, from the Bharat Biotech laboratory, at very high prices, and that he transferred the concern to Bolsonaro himself.

He added that Bolsonaro assured him he would report these suspicions to federal police, which he apparently never did.

The apparent omission led three senators to file a complaint with the Supreme Court on Monday to have Bolsonaro investigated for a possible crime of “prevarication”.

The Ministry of Health announced on Tuesday that it had so far detected no irregularities in the Indian vaccine contract, for which so far no delivery or payment has been made. But what anyway decided to suspend it, while investigating suspicions.

Three Brazilian senators filed a complaint with the Supreme Court on Monday to determine whether President Jair Bolsonaro committed the crime of “prevarication” by failing to report suspicions of corruption in the purchase of the Covaxin anticovid vaccine.

Bolsonaro, in sharp decline in popularity, is the target of an avalanche of criticism and calls for impeachment for downplaying the importance of the pandemic.

(With information from AFP)

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