Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: There is something suspicious about invoices: Why is a company in Singapore Billing Brazil $ 45 million for Indian Covid-19 vaccines that have not been delivered?
Payment requests for three million doses of Vaccine Covaxin Bharat Biotech landed on March 18 at the Luis Ricardo Miranda table, head of medical import in the Brazilian Ministry of Health.
There are several red flags, according to Miranda, who testified on Friday before a Senate panel investigating the handling of the government’s pandemic, which has claimed more than 500,000 lives in Brazil, the second only to the United States.
Typically Brazil bought Covaxin at all, considering the President Jair Jair Bolsonaro – who regularly spread expert advice on Covid-19 – had previously eradicated vaccines that were cheaper and more effective.
But who was worried Miranda was that the $ 300 million Brazilian contract for Covaxin did not mention the company that sent invoices, Madison Biotech, a clear shell company.
Also, vaccines have not arrived – and don’t even have regulatory approval in Brazil.
‘Excessive’ pressure
But Miranda began to receive a telephone call every hour of his boss, put what he called pressure “atypical, excessive to him to approve payment.
Another deviation in the Brazilian Covaxin agreement immediately appeared, forcing the administration to cancel it because the prosecutor opened an investigation.
According to the Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper, Bharat Biotech initially quoted a price of $ 1.34 doses.
But Brazil agreed to pay $ 15 doses, more than other vaccines purchased.
Miranda took her worries to her brother, a member of Congress Luis Miranda, a Bolsonaro supporter.
Miranda Congressman went to the President – who is now in a hot seat on charges, the Covaxin agreement is the front to roll millions of dollars, that the key ally interpreted the plan, and that Bolsonaro knew all about it.
The risk of exploding scandals: the Senate Commission is now set to vote whether it will officially accuse the President of Malefasing, and the opponent has been called anti-bolsonaro protest for Wednesday and Saturday.
Plot thickens
Miranda’s brothers said they met Bolsonaro on March 20 to warn the Covaxin contract could be a dirty agreement.
“The president looked at me in his eyes and said,” It’s serious, ‘”Congress testified Miranda.
“” If I interfere with this, you know what nonsense will arouse. This must be dealing so and so, ‘”he told the President told him.
Pressed by the Senator to identify “so-and-so,” Congress members insisted he would not remember.
Then, on the tears at the end of the marathon meeting, he gave up.
“I will be persecuted. I’ve lost everything. I know what will happen to me,” said Miranda, who arrived in a session in the bulletproof vest.
But he coughed his name: Ricardo Barros, a strong Congressman who was the head of the Bolsonaro coalition at home down.
‘First big bomb’
Barros, the former Minister of Health, denied mistakes, like Bolsonaro, who accused Miranda brothers from the smear campaign.
But the scandal could be very devastated, when Bolsonaro’s support shrank and his polls were far behind the former Luiz President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva in next year’s election.
“It was the first big bomb” to come from a two-month Senate investigation, said Geraldo Monteiro, a political scientist at Rio de Janeiro State University.
“We have a testimony that shows negligence and rejection of the government, but no one is truly serious who has the potential to cause the president,” he told AFP.
Now, vaccination campaigns that hit the deficiency of Brazil and the lives have the cost of not only incompetent, but potentially criminal – with the president himself accused of making mistakes.
