What to expect from the Covid inquiry’s second act

With Brazil’s Congress now back to work after a mid-year recess, attention returns to the Senate’s Covid hearings committee, which investigates the federal government’s pandemic response, holding its first session in over two weeks.

After three months of work — with another three still to go — the hearings committee will now focus its efforts on allegations of unjust enrichment in the procurement of Covid-19 vaccines and other services. Among the primary lines of investigation are claims that coordinators of federal hospitals in Rio de Janeiro took part in bribery schemes involving government contracts, with former state Governor Wilson Witzel hinting that a member of the Bolsonaro family is behind the alleged web of corruption.

Depositions resume today, and we’ve broken down the committee’s major lines of inquiry for the coming weeks and months.

Covid vaccine middlemen

For their first session back after the holiday, senators will conduct the deposition of Amilton Gomes de Paula, an evangelical pastor who oversees a private social organization in Brasília. Executives of the Health Ministry brought in Rev. Gomes de Paula to act as a middleman in negotiations over the government’s purchase of 400 million AstraZeneca vaccines from Texas-based company Davati Medical Supply.

The deal is surrounded by controversy, not least because AstraZeneca has categorically confirmed it does not work with third-parties and that the only contracts it holds with Brazil come by way of the Oswaldo Cruz Institute and the UN-backed Covax Facility.

Furthermore, Davati has its own checkered past, currently under investigation in Canada for attempting to sell AstraZeneca vaccines to indigenous communities without authorization from the manufacturer.

Rev. Gomes de...