The Right to Information (RTI) Teh Tarik Series is organised by Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ).
How is the vaccine rollout going at the moment - fast? slow? slow but getting faster? Sivarasa Rasiah says we are slow, but Khairy says we are fast compared to our neighbours like Indonesia, Thailand & Philippines. What's holding it up? Supply issues caused by hoarding by the rich countries? Or are there other factors?
So the question about fast or slow vaccine rollout, we have to first look at the whole global supply chain then only the distribution and vaccine administration speed. The numbers we often compare among countries are the final outcome of all the factors combined.
We must realise that the vaccine-making machines from manufacturers simply do not recognise or distinguish which country they are producing for. So, on the supply issues, it is mainly in the hands of the small number of manufacturers, depending on the terms and conditions stated in the procurement agreements they striked with many governments and entities.
From the global data we can see that US and EU countries have received and administered about 320million and 336million doses. Compared to the southeast asia countries with the population size about 85% of EU and US combined, we only received and administered about 10% of their dose amount. There are factors beyond our control, because most vaccine manufacturing capacity is in the West (besides India and China) and the supply does not operate on a ‘first come first served’ basis.
In fact, Indonesia has already received and administered 37million doses, Philippines 8.9million, Thailand 8.1million, they probably received more than Malaysia (Indonesia and Thailand are also contracted to produce vaccines for local consumption). So if unadjusted to population size they are ahead. Singapore had secured the vaccine supply about 2 months ahead of us (most probably due to the premium they paid for Pfizer vaccines), but in terms of total doses, we have received and administered more now. If our government did not diversify the vaccine portfolio and strictly relied on Pfizer and/or AstraZeneca, the problem could be much worse.
How would you rate the flow of information from the government about Covid-19 vaccinations so far?
Let me offer what I think about the regular data information the government has provided for public consumption: only daily and cumulative first dose and second dose administration by state, cumulative registration number by state, as well as number and locations of PPVs.
Only when journalists asked in the press conference or the Minister took the stage of certain webinar, we can know more about other data such as number of vaccine doses arrived and administered by vaccine type, the stats about doses administered by phase, by age group or certain risk group; projection of vaccine arrivals and administration in future. I wonder, why are these information not available and uploaded regularly (although not necessary daily) on the vaksincovid.gov.my website or social media? With enough annotations and explanation about the stats, we do not even need the Minister to explain the data. Instead of letting people speculate and accusing the government this and that without the data, these data information could help leading the public discussion to be more informed and analytic.
How transparent has spending on Covid-19 been thus far? For e.g. the RM 5 billion withdrawn from KWAN (National Trust Fund) for purchasing vaccines – has there been sufficient information given to the public?
The issue with the public oversight and scrutiny over government budgets has been long standing, passing on from one government to another. Currently there is not much such government budgetary transparent practises in place, besides the PAC (Public Accounts Committee) in Parliament who has the power to summon relevant officers and ministers to offer explanation. But now there is no concrete timeline of when our parliament will be reconvened, and budget oversight should not be left only to PAC, but it is people’s rights (be it voters or taxpayers) to scrutinise such important information, so they can monitor and perhaps offer better advice.
The current practices are whatever budget amount passed and approved in the parliament or under the ordinance now, the government will be able to spend within the ceiling limit, with not much of check and balance. Even the budget line items breakdown when they are proposed is actually far from clear.
The RM5 billion budget given to fund the PICK programme, we have only one page Lampiran 1 as the reference about the categories of expenditure. How much of these allocated budgets have been spent now? And spent on what? Only the authority knows.
I’m not suggesting that people would abuse the PICK programme fund, I do not have evidence to say so, and I urge people not to spread lies and fake news if you are not certain or if you are not a whistleblower who knows what is going on.
Sadly, what happened in the past, many misappropriate public expenditure abuses and scandals were only exposed after our Auditor General did their professional duty checking the quality of works or items purchased against the expenditure claims. However, often this is already too late to save the precious resource lost to corruption.
In fact, many people in the public are still confused and thought that the government is going to spend RM5 billion for purchasing vaccines. No, it is not, only RM3.5billion is allocated for that purpose and logistics cost. Also, now the total dose amount the government ordered has swelled to cover 130% population compared to February’s 110%. However, so far we do not know what are the prices the government would pay for each vaccine in the portfolio, and if the price and dose amount the government orders is justifiable.
Whether the RM5billion PICK programme fund should come from the National Trust Fund , our own federal reserve or raise debt to cover, I do not have a particularly strong opinion.
On the subject of vaccine procurement, why are there non-disclosure clauses in our agreements with pharmaceutical companies and what is the impact on our purchase of vaccines and related disclosure of information on use of public funds? (Follow - up question - What can be done to limit the restrictions?
Thanks for this important question. If you ask me if our government has purposely done so and preferred secrecy, I would definitely say ‘NO’. In fact, sadly this is a common global practice, since the demand is so great in the beginning of the vaccine chase race. the pharmaceutical companies have the uneven power and leverage due to legal monopoly of the technology, they can decide who and how many and how fast they want to supply, given the limit of their capacity and scarcity of vaccines in the world. Very commonly, they would like to practice differential pricing, so that they could charge the desperate and/or rich countries more, without letting these countries negotiators have the price reference information from elsewhere to compare with. Clearly, the bargaining power is not in the hands of governments, especially those from smaller countries like Malaysia, unless you are willing to pay a much higher premium like some countries.
Besides that, the pharmaceutical companies also want non-indemnity for any health risks that arise from vaccine injections and non-guarantee of delivery timing and volume, so our government cannot use the agreement to make them pay any penalty for delays or failure to deliver.
If you ask me about the impacts of such practises to the public fund, so far it is hard to judge. The allocated budget amount so far for the vaccine procurement and logistics is still reasonable to me, about RM44 per dose. The consequences of public health on the non-indemnity, to me , is a greater issue to me.
The government should reveal the agreement or the important information from the agreement such as vaccine pricing, to the public after a certain period, say 1 year later. For now, at the very least, the government should take the liberty and consider releasing the redacted version of the agreement , as this is possible and have been done in many other countries.
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