The storm between Minister of Health Frank Vandenbroucke (Vooruit) and vaccine distributor Medista is becoming increasingly fierce. How did it come to this? A story about spies, hidden cameras and a bizarre link with Harvey Weinstein.
March 2020. While the first infections with an unknown virus from China are causing panic in our country, the Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products (FAGG) receives an email. Do they need some extra storage spaces for medical materials? The sender is Medista, until then a small player in the Belgian pharmaceutical sector. At that time, the company had only been in existence for two years and had only just gotten out of the red. Three years later it will make millions of euros in profits.
For the FAMHP, Medista’s message could not have come at a better time. Even before the start of the pandemic, the agency was already experiencing a shortage of medical storage facilities. To arm itself against the virus, it suddenly needs to be able to store much more medical equipment and medicines. The acute shortage makes it easy for the FAMHP to change tack. Medista may provide its services to the government from April 2020 – even without a contract in the first weeks.
Not much later, the army asks the government to also keep track of masks. Once again Medista is ready. By September that year, the company suddenly became the government’s official partner for the storage and distribution of three instruments in the fight against the virus: medicines, masks, and tests.
Stiff
However, the collaboration has been difficult from the start. In the summer of 2020, questions arose at the FAMHP as to whether Medista accurately documents the available stock. When they share their concerns, Medista responds immediately through lawyers, according to Dirk Ramaekers, chairman of the FPS Public Health. According to him, there was also “intimidation of members of the FAMHP”. Medista denies that.
Nevertheless, Medista will also win its first public tender in May 2021. The company may take on the most important task so far: the distribution and storage of vaccines. “Medista was actually the most expensive of all candidates,” said Ramaekers at a press conference last Friday. “But because the file of the three other companies was incomplete – they were not used to participating in a public tender – the contract went to Medista.”
Barely a few months after the tender, in September 2021, the planned budget for vaccine distribution was almost exhausted. “The government had more vaccines to distribute than originally thought,” explains Medista CEO Sarah Taybi. Reason enough for the government to start a new tender. Medista participates again, but loses. Instead, the vaccine contract goes to the French company Movianto, which is 30 percent cheaper and scores only slightly worse on quality.
Mossad
Even before the new contract comes into effect, Medista goes to the Council of State. It is the start of a bitter procedural battle that has gone unnoticed until now. Until Vandenbroucke suddenly came out with a spectacular story last Friday. Medista is said to have engaged former members of the Israeli intelligence service to manipulate an official of the Federal Public Service of Health into confessions.
Specifically, it concerns “creative intelligence agency” Black Cube. Harvey Weinstein, among others, called in the agency to spy on journalists and victims who wanted to expose his sexual misconduct. For Medista, Black Cube lured an official from the FPS Public Health and an employee of competitor Movianto abroad under the guise of a job interview. In that conversation – which was secretly recorded – both claimed The last news admit that the government helped Movianto win the contract.
The civil servant also received a letter from Medista’s lawyer at her home address on October 4, in which he accused her of “criminal violations” and gave her the choice between dismissal or an amicable settlement. Minister Vandenbroucke calls these practices “unethical”. He maintains that the official made no mistakes, but did request a federal audit to investigate “any new element.”
N-VA MP Kathleen Depoorter has a remarkable role to play in this whole matter. She firmly supports Medista’s claims in parliament and thus increases political pressure. When The last news last week came out with a letter that Medista sent to Prime Minister Alexander De Croo (Open Vld), shortly afterwards Depoorter asked Vandenbroucke about it in parliament. “I do not support Medista or Movianto,” says Depoorter. “I am a parliamentarian and in that position I have to check whether the government is doing its job properly.”
In the meantime, Medista is considering new legal steps. According to CEO Taybi, the videos are proof of the government’s tampering. She also maintains that the government owes her 5.4 million euros and does not believe that her methods go too far: “If you fight the government as an entrepreneur, you must be able to provide hard evidence. That is why we have engaged an international research agency that specializes in this. I call on the minister to urgently look at the contents of our investigation file.”
