site.btaHealth Ministry to Refer to Prosecutors Purchase of Ventilators, Masks and Medicine Purchased at Inflated Prices and in Intransparent Procedure

Sofia, June 24 (BTA) - The Health Ministry is referring to the
prosecution service the findings of an audit into a deal for
purchase of ventilators, face masks and medicines from China.
Announcing the decision Thursday, Deputy Health Minister
Dimitar Petrov said some of the supplies were bought at inflated
 
prices and the whole procedure lacked transparency.

On March 27, 2020 the previous government approved a contract
with the China National Pharmaceutical Foreign Trade Corporation
 to purchase protective gear and medical equipment. Under the
contract, the Bulgarian Health Ministry had to use money from
Operational Programme Regions in Growth to buy 1,176,770 masks
worth 1,412,124 euro in total and 50 ventilators totalling
1,500,000 euro.

Thus, the cost of one mask was 1.20 euro or about 2.40 leva, and
 a ventilator cost 30,000 euro or about 60,000 leva.

On Thursday, Petrov said that the report from an audit by the
Health Ministry Inspectorate showed that the deals for
protective gear, purchase of hydroxychloroquine and ventilators
lacked transparency. Those were purchased with funding from the
budget and that the contracts for them were signed in March and
April last year. "No administrative coordination procedures were
 followed, the contracts had no penalty clauses and the delivery
 deadlines have not been met," Petrov said, adding that this is
a prerequisite for corrupt practices.

He said the ventilators were bought twice or three times above
the going market prices. It is not known exactly how much the
budget suffered from that deal.

"Usually a document is agreed upon by 4-5 people, but here we
have a single person: the contracts were prepared only by
[former deputy health Minister] Jeni Nacheva, then presented to
the minister, who submitted them to the government,'' Petrov
explained. According to him, there was no information on where
the offers came from, there were only verbal explanations that
they were collected by the Economy Ministry through foreign
trade missions. The Health Ministry Inspectorate stated that no
such offers had been sent to the Health Ministry.

Although it was meant for hospitals, the first batch of
protective masks than came, contained non-sterile masks, Petrov
said.

Regarding the supply of hydroxychloroquine, 171,000 units of the
 medicine were purchased from China at a time when a significant
 donation of the same medicine came at the request of the
government. Much of the hydroxychloroquine supplies expires next
 year and will be difficult to sell because the medicine is
produced at many places, including Bulgaria, Petrov added. The
purchase price of the drug was about 600,000 dollars.

"Such actions should be coordinated among several directorates.
The fact that it was done by one person and the minister, shows
that apart from being rushed, the deal was not meant to be seen
by more people in the Ministry of Health and all the way through
 to the Council of Ministers," Petrov added. NV/DT