The Democratic Alliance (DA) is calling for National Assembly to undertake an urgent inquiry into government’s handling of the Covid-19 vaccine roll-out in the interest of accountability and transparency.

The party wrote to National Assembly speaker Thandi Modise requesting the establishment of a multiparty ad hoc committee with broad terms of reference to allow for as comprehensive an inquiry as possible.

Many provinces have officially entered the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The total number of people vaccinated is 1 777 288, with 1 797 doses having been administered in the last 24-hour cycle. Of the total number of people vaccinated, 1 297 520 received the Pfizer vaccine, under phase two of the national vaccination roll-out.

A recent shock to South Africa’s vaccine supply came after the US Food and Drug Administration could not give assurances that South Africa’s supply of 2-million Johnson and Johnson vaccines were not contaminated during manufacturing in the US. 

South Africa will now receive a fresh batch of 2-million vaccines within two weeks.

The DA said that with new infections rising fast, the country needed to redouble efforts to vaccinate as many people as possible.

“Poorly functioning and overly controlling bureaucratic systems must not stand in the way of saving lives. We are at a crucial time where government is expected to acquire and roll-out an effective vaccine roll-out programme. The process until now has been marred with challenges – some beyond government’s control but some due to its own making,” said the party.

DA national spokesperson Siviwe Gwarube explained that the establishment of an ad hoc committee would ensure that deadlines were met and that the process was free from corruption.

“We submit that through an ad hoc committee Parliament will be able to summon the executive, issue deadlines, perform oversight, hold them to deadlines and ensure that the tasks are executed as efficiently as possible,” said Gwarube.

NATIONAL COVID-19 VACCINE ROLL-OUT

DA Shadow Minister of Finance Geordin Hill-Lewis believes government made two crucial mistakes over the past year.

The first, he said, was government’s decision to exclusively pursue vaccine access through the COVAX facility and the second mistake, he argued, was that government compounded the problem by not timeously engaging in bilateral agreements directly with manufacturers through an advanced market commitment mechanism.

Hill-Lewis said South Africans had good reason to feel really angry and let down, because of government’s “now-obvious failure” to acquire and secure an adequate supply of vaccines early enough to protect lives.

He went on to say that as the third wave of infections gained fatal momentum, tens of millions of South Africans were waiting fearfully for their vaccine, however, government’s vaccine programme was still making dangerously slow progress, putting many lives at risk.

He said that it was highly unlikely that the country would achieve any form of population immunity in the near future.

“While we all celebrate seeing the pictures of vaccines being administered to some senior citizens, and hearing how one or two of our own elderly family members have received their first jabs, this does not make up for the failures of the vaccine programme thus far. The fact is, there are far too few vaccines available, those that we do have are late, and are being too slowly rolled out to stop this pandemic,” explained Hill-Lewis.

The party said it is clear South Africa does not have the vaccine supply it needs.

Gwarube said there must be full and frank accountability for this failure.

“South Africans want to know – and have a right to know – what happened, how we got here, and who is responsible. This is the essential work of Parliament, and it cannot shrink from that responsibility now,” she said.

“Only a proper vaccine roll-out programme will put an end to the continuous upsurge in Covid-19 cases in South Africa. Failure to do so is condemning South Africans to further devastation and economic ruin. South Africans deserve an efficient and transparent vaccine roll-out and the DA believes that a parliamentary inquiry into the government’s vaccine roll-out plan is accordingly necessary and urgent,” the party said.