Guatemala City (AFP)
Guatemala will request the return of the payment for the purchase of the Sputnik V vaccine if Russia does not send at least eight million doses on time, while they consider renegotiating the contract to avoid further disbursements.
“If the deliveries are not fulfilled in relation to a calculation that we have made (…) then we would require the return of the resources that we still have, to which they [el fondo ruso] they have been very open [a devolver]”, said the Minister of Health, Amelia Flores, on the radio program Con Criterio on Wednesday.
In a meeting with parliamentarians on Tuesday, the minister reported that the government sent a letter to the Direct Investment Fund of Russia (RDIF), giving a period of 20 days for the shipment of at least the second doses for who received the first in May, although the number was not specified.
Guatemala paid the RDIF some $ 79.6 million in early April for half of an order for 16 million doses of the immunizer. However, so far only 150,000 doses of this vaccine have arrived in three shipments.
The first shipment of 50,000 doses, on May 5, arrived after being postponed three times and since then the country has not had a delivery schedule. According to the Ministry of Health, so far 122,712 people have received the first dose of Sputnik V.
– Open renegotiation –
“Our proposal [a Rusia] is that what we have paid until today becomes 100% of the contract, “said Flores about the options that they evaluate before reaching the return of the payment, that is, closing the operation in 8 million doses and no longer in the Initial 16 million.
Last week, the Guatemalan Foreign Minister, Pedro Brolo, traveled to Russia to request the fulfillment of the contract.
On Tuesday at a press conference he pointed out that, although Guatemala is on a “priority list” for the RDIF, it has “large-scale” production problems that could be solved in August.
For the next few days, Russia is expected to send a batch of 400,000 doses, Brolo said, detailing that Russia “is open” to renegotiating the purchase.
“They demonstrated the will that in case they cannot guarantee us and give us the certainty of the shipment, of the dates, of the amounts of that much-needed schedule, that they are willing and open to renegotiation,” Brolo said.
And, “as long as the continuity and distribution of the vaccines” that Russia must send is not guaranteed, the foreign minister assured that Guatemala “would not be making a next (second) payment because it would not make sense.”
Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei bet in April on the Sputnik V vaccine to immunize a little more than half of the 17 million inhabitants, and the projections at that time were to supply the two doses by the end of the year.
“At that specific moment in which we decided to go through Sputnik, it was the only alternative for the country (…). The contract was made, it was paid, and we did not get the answers we were waiting for,” added Minister Flores.
– Vice President calls for investigation –
The Guatemalan Vice President, Guillermo Castillo, who has had open disagreements with Giammattei on the direction of the government, considered that the Prosecutor’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office (PGN), which acts as the State’s lawyer, should inquire about the negotiation with Russia.
“They [Fiscalía y PGN] they should help us to elucidate what really happened with that contract from its inception, “Castillo declared in a meeting with journalists.
Meanwhile, the organization Acción Ciudadana (AC), a local chapter of Transparency International, together with the collective Alianza por las Reformas, asked the Prosecutor’s Office to initiate an investigation into the contract for the purchase of Sputnik V vaccines, considering that it is “harmful “for the country and puts” in danger “the money of the national budget.
Since February, Guatemala has received 1.2 million doses of vaccines from different laboratories, 355,000 as donations from Israel, India and Mexico.
The vaccine shortage has sparked protests against the president, Alejandro Giammattei, whom protesters asked to resign earlier this year, accusing him of mishandling the pandemic.
Although the vaccination began five months ago with first-line medical personnel and now with older adults, the Ministry of Health only reports a complete vaccination schedule to about 158,000 people and a dose to about 925,300.
Giammattei attributes those figures to the apathy of the elderly to go to vaccination centers.
Until this Wednesday, Guatemala had 292,674 cases and 9,147 deaths from covid-19.
© 2021 AFP
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