Stellenbosch University Department of Public Law Professor Geo Quinot has stated that the Covid-19 pandemic has again highlighted the challenges facing public procurement in South Africa, further explaining that lack of transparency and corruption impact negatively on vaccine hesitancy.

Quinot was speaking at the Covid-19 vaccine procurement webinar hosted by Corruption Watch on Wednesday.

“Public trust is undoubtedly a major factor in the success of any mass Covid-19 vaccination programme. The efficacy of such a programme hinges on vaccinating enough of the population to achieve herd immunity, which in turn hinges on enough people adequately trusting the programme to seek vaccination,” he said.

He explained that apart from the constitutional values of good public governance, which required high levels of transparency, such transparency in government’s vaccination programme was also essential for the success of the programme.

Quinot expressed anxiety around the procurement of vaccines and the services required to vaccinate the population.

“The procurement dimension of government’s Covid-19 vaccination programme can be divided into two parts. On the one hand there is the procurement of the vaccine itself and on the other hand there is the procurement of the services required to roll out the vaccination programme. For the moment at least, these two parts seem to be being procured separately,” he said.

He added that as far as the procurement of the vaccines was concerned, there were again two parts to the procurement. Firstly, government procured vaccines via the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) initiative. Secondly, government is procuring vaccines directly from manufacturers. The approach to procurement for these two parts differs slightly, but both involve deviations from the prescribed competitive bidding procedure.

Vaccine and Rollout Procurement

Quinot explained that while there are signs that government has learnt some lessons from the procurement failures of its early response to the pandemic, there were also worrying signs of continuing challenges.

These include important information deficits pertaining to the content and process of procurement.

He expressed hope that the relevant information would be made public as soon as possible to ensure public trust in the programme.

He said there were some important gaps in the information currently available pertaining to the procurement behind government’s vaccination programme. Some of this vagueness may simply be because the relevant aspects have not yet been finalised, he conceded.

“One can certainly understand the move to centralise the procurement relating to the vaccination programme, especially in light of the challenges experienced during the highly decentralised procurement characterising the early responses to the pandemic. However, uncertainty remains around the exact role of provinces and, to a limited extent, the private sector,” Quinot said.

Meanwhile, another major area of uncertainty related to the terms of the supply contracts for the vaccines. He said while government leaders had assured that vaccines had been “secured” and that manufacturers had “committed” doses, he noted that it was unclear whether any vaccine supply contracts had actually been signed, apart from the agreement to participate in the COVAX initiative.

Of particular concern for him was the indication that such an agreement may contain a no-fault compensation system for adverse events and that these agreements may include non-disclosure clauses. There were also concerning signs regarding the costs.

“All these uncertainties raise questions about whether the agreements will meet the constitutional requirement that public contracts must be concluded in terms of ‘a system which is fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective’,” said Quinot.