State authorities are slow to identify the culprits for spending more than 1,000,000,000 (ONE BILLION) euros on unnecessary vaccines. The Foundation for the Defence of Citizens against State Abuses (FACIAS) has been calling on the Ministry of Health since May to renegotiate the contracts and say who are the people responsible for evaluating and signing for the purchase of a huge number of doses.
The Ministry did not comply with FACIAS requests, hiding this information and claiming that these contracts do not exist, despite the fact that the reality and Ministry of Health documents show otherwise. The first term of FACIAS's lawsuit will be heard on October 27 at the Bucharest Court.
FACIAS also reported to DNA in July about procurement contracts for COVID-19 vaccines after officials in the Ministry of Health deliberately passed on false information. They attested to untruthful circumstances regarding the non-existence of these contracts, following the action of including information about these contracts in the classified/confidential category, in order to conceal the violation of the law by the officials who concluded these contracts, which were harmful to the Romanian state.
Romania has committed to buy a very large number of doses, approx. 100 million, without taking into account the real needs. Less than 20% of these have been used, and now we are in a situation where millions of these doses have expired or will expire soon, or will never be used.
This year alone, ANOTHER 20 million doses are expected to arrive, and this is in a context where, according to official information from the Ministry of Health, there ARE ALREADY another 7 million doses in storage. And, let's not forget, Romania has already sold or donated almost 6 million doses. Similarly, millions of doses have already expired in the manufacturers' warehouses, and Romanians have to pay for their destruction.