COA can audit COVID-19 vaccine purchases despite non-disclosure deals

The Commission on Audit (COA) said on Friday it is within its mandate to scrutinize the government’s purchase of COVID-19 vaccines despite the existence of non-disclosure agreements with the manufacturers over their prices.

During the House Committee on Appropriations’ hearing on the agency’s proposed P14.46-billion budget for 2022, COA chairman Michael Aguinaldo said that state auditors will conduct an audit on all the expenditures related to vaccines.

“For the information of the Committee, two months we already issued guidelines for the auditors in the audit of the National Vaccination Program nandun po ‘yung guidelines na susundan po ng auditors in the audit of the purchases of vaccines even actually the use of vaccines that have been donated,” Aquino said.

In his interpellation, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman asked the COA chair if the state auditing agency can audit the expenditures of the Department of Health and the National Task Force on COVID-19 for the purchases of various brands of vaccines despite the invocation of non-disclosure agreements.

Lagman stressed that government officials, “who invoked the non-disclosure agreement to conceal the prices of the vaccines they have purchased,” have violated laws on transparency and accountability on the procurement of goods and services.

The lawmaker cited Section 6 of Republic Act 11525 or the COVID-19 Vaccine Program Act of 2021, “which provides, among others, that for purposes of transparency and accountability… the name of the supplier, manufacturer or distributor and the amount of contract as awarded must be posted at a conspicuous space of the procuring entity as well as to the Government Procurement Policy Board.”

With this, Aguinaldo said that the non-disclosure provisions were a requirement by the manufacturers.

But he clarified that the COA will be exempted from non-disclosure agreements as it is part of its constitutional mandate to look into the government's transactions.

“So, I think, pag i-audit na talaga ‘yon… medyo naguumpisa na rin ‘yan (We are starting our audit), although it’s an activity for 2022, makikita po ‘yan (we can inspect that) and all those matters will have to be disclosed po,” Aguinaldo said.

“I would tend to look at the duty of the Commission or the power of the Commission as an exemption to an NDA (non-disclosure agreement). An NDA is governed by whatever the stipulations states but I think it’s a given exemption that, of course, there are government processes that have to be followed.

“At a certain point in time isa-submit po samin ‘yan (we will submit that) and we will be able to see, madali naman i-check (it's easy to check), there are a lot of resources online where we can find magkano ba talaga binibenta ang mga vaccines na ‘to. I think makikita naman po namin ‘yan pag ginawa na ang audit (how much are these vaccines being sold for, we will find out all of that once we do the audit),” he added.

The government has set aside P82.5 billion for its massive COVID-19 vaccination program, of which P2.5 billion will come from the Department of Health's budget allocation for 2021, while the P10 billion will be sourced from the COVID-19 vaccination program of the Bayanihan to Recover As One Act.

Meanwhile, the remaining P70 billion will be sourced from loans provided by multilateral lenders, the Philippines’ bilateral partners, and/or the domestic market.

Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. earlier said that Philippines will lose its 148 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines if the prices of the vaccines will be disclosed.

Nevertheless, for the sake of transparency, President Rodrigo Duterte has authorized Galvez to disclose to Senate President Vicente Sotto III the details of the COVID-19 vaccine deals of the government. -MDM, GMA News