Covaxin corruption claims leave Bolsonaro government reeling

Since being set up two months ago, the Brazilian Senate’s parliamentary inquiry into the federal government’s pandemic response has cast its net far and wide in an attempt to lay the Jair Bolsonaro administration’s coronavirus mismanagement bare. So far, it has not gone completely to plan. Senators have grilled government officials and created plenty of bad press for President Jair Bolsonaro, but have struggled to achieve their desired impact.

Heads of the inquiry hope that may change today, however, suspecting that they may have found their silver bullet.

The hearings committee has turned its attention to a contract signed between the Brazilian government and Indian pharmaceutical firm Bharat Biotech for the purchase of 20 million Covaxin vaccines. The agreement is full of suspicious elements, relating to intermediaries, unit prices, delivery times, and payment conditions. But now, accusations have emerged that President Bolsonaro himself was made aware of the alleged irregularities in the BRL 1.6 billion (USD 300 million) contract.

And the Senate inquiry is not the only body investigating the contract. The Federal Prosecution Service, Federal Accounts Court, and Federal Controller General are all going over the Bharat Biotech deal with a fine-tooth comb. 

But it is the hearings committee in the upper house of Congress which holds the key witness: Luis Ricardo Miranda, a former Health Ministry official who was in charge of signing vaccine contracts with suppliers. He told courts that he was put under “atypical pressure” to fast-track the Covaxin contract and highlighted inconsistencies in the invoice from Precisa Medicamentos, Brazil’s middle-man in the negotiations.

Among his suspicions include the delivery of less than 10 percent of the total volume of doses in the first batch, and an advance payment of BRL 45 million to Madison...