2023-08-23 06:57:00
MP N-VA looked at the expenses and the choices made by the federal minister to manage the health crisis. She observed a series of irregularities: waste of public money which amounts to more than 200 million euros, vagueness in the awarding of contracts for the distribution of vaccines, potential conflict of interest, disputed invoices, erroneous figures…
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Kathleen Depoorter tried the legislative route to understand what had happened. Without success. “The answers that Minister Vandenbroucke gave to the Chamber have always remained vague and incomplete”, deplores the elected nationalist. “Information is communicated only with difficulty and after strong parliamentary insistence.”
La Flandrienne describes “poor” communication from the Minister of Health. She even accuses Frank Vandenbroucke of having presented “untruths” and “lies”. The federal deputy is indeed also a pharmacist. “Health is my world. I know the producers, the wholesalers, the distributors. I work with Movianto and Medista. There are differences between what I learn and what Minister Vandenbroucke answers me.
According to calculations made by Kathleen Depoorter and her colleague Frieda Gijbels (N-VA), the waste of public money, which she attributes in part to the choices made by the minister, would amount to “very probably 235 million euros” . What caused these costs: outdated trial equipment, unusable personal protective equipment, drugs and vaccines purchased but never used that end up being destroyed, reliance on consultants without pharmaceutical knowledge who give bad advice or more legal proceedings bogged down following bad decisions.
The minister’s office acknowledges the facts, but lowers the amount of the total bill. This would actually amount to 210.9 million euros. “There were two phases of destruction of expired products. The total value of the stock to be destroyed was €79.8 million in phase 1 (purchase price), and €131.1 million in phase 2 (market price).”
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He adds this clarification: “Faced with the unprecedented health crisis and great uncertainty that we have gone through, each government had to do everything in its power to protect its population. This is why, during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, the previous government massively purchased medical devices, such as masks, to withstand several successive waves of the coronavirus. It was a necessary and logical decision. It is now necessary to destroy the surpluses because they are expired.”
To get out of the pandemic, the government then saw too broadly. Today, large-scale vaccination is no longer necessary and some vaccines are outdated, while others are less suitable against the latest variants. “We are therefore forced to destroy a small proportion of these vaccines”, continues the cabinet which however ensures that it still has “enough suitable vaccines in the event that a new major vaccination campaign proves to be necessary”.
The two MEPs have repeatedly asked for an independent investigation into this subject, in particular with regard to the management and operation of the FPS Public Health, the FAMHP and Sciensano. To date, their request has gone unheeded.
“There are so many anomalies in this dossier that it is essential to be able to provide full transparency”, breathes Kathleen Depoorter. Faced with the insistence of the member, the socialist minister replied that the task was too important. It would take too much work to take over all the documents related to the management of strategic stocks. “However, two years ago, the Covid committee had the opportunity to consult all the necessary documents which had been provided to it by its predecessor Maggie De Block (Open VLD)”, continues the deputy, who therefore considers the decision inadmissible. argument presented by Frank Vandenbroucke.
Contacted by our care, the Vandenbroucke cabinet affirms that “the minister answers the questions of the representatives of the people in the parliament. All answers are public and findable online.”
Another case that swells the huge file that the MP has built up over the months: the opaque procedure for replacing Medista by Movianto. The Belgian company Medista was responsible for the management and distribution of the vaccines, in principle, from 2020 to 2025. But in July 2022, the FPS Health decided to assign this responsibility to the multinational Movianto. The Minister of Health defended this choice for budgetary reasons.
The transfer of power to Movianto was to save 4 million euros. However, the cost of the transition would be higher than the amount that had to be saved. Added to this is the fact that there would have been irregularities in the call for tenders and that invoices claimed by Medista would be contested by the federal government. Medista seized the Council of State, which generates additional legal costs for the government.
”As regards Movianto and Medista, Mrs. Depoorter asked many questions on this subject, and Minister Vandenbroucke always answered them. You can also read everything in the reports,” replies Vandenbroucke. “Madame Depoorter has repeatedly made accusations that there were irregularities when switching from one operator (Medista) to a new operator (Movianto). There is no evidence of these irregularities. The Council of State has also completely refuted the complaint of the 1st operator on this subject.
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