{"id":33631,"date":"2022-02-02T13:01:28","date_gmt":"2022-02-02T11:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riseproject.ro\/investigations\/uncategorized\/the-syringe-deal\/"},"modified":"2023-06-18T12:31:45","modified_gmt":"2023-06-18T10:31:45","slug":"the-syringe-deal","status":"publish","type":"investigations","link":"https:\/\/www.riseproject.ro\/en\/investigations\/uncategorized\/the-syringe-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201dTHE SYRINGE\u201d DEAL"},"content":{"rendered":"

The urgency.<\/i><\/b><\/span> The delivery of syringes for the national vaccination campaign against COVID-19 was delayed by more than 2 months, although no public tender was organized for their purchase. <\/b><\/p>\n

The decision. <\/i><\/b><\/span> The government approved the public procurement of 10 million syringes on November 5, 2020, through an emergency ordinance. The first lot \u2013 250,000 pieces \u2013 arrived in the country, from Qatar, on January 16, 2021, when the second stage of the vaccination program had already begun.<\/b><\/p>\n

The army.<\/i><\/b><\/span> The medical devices were brought by a military plane which had transported soldiers to a NATO mission in Iraq to fight terrorism. According to the experts consulted on this subject, the Army\u2019s involvement in the transport of syringes, although not stipulated in the initial contract, vitiated the public procurement procedure.<\/b><\/p>\n

The outcome.<\/i><\/b><\/span> Some hospitals bought syringes on their own, at a lower price. The company that won the governmental contract can make 2,8 million RON profit. The estimated profit from this contract equals almost 80 percent of the company’s accumulated profit in 8 years of existence.<\/b><\/p>\n

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A mobile medical team from DSP Ia\u0219i vaccinates the elderly from the Private Home for the Elderly “St. Michael and Gabriel” in Ia\u0219i during the second stage of vaccination, Friday, January 15, 2021. Inquam Photos \/ Liviu Chirica<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

THE PEOPLE INVOLVED: <\/b><\/h2>\n

\"\" Cornelia Nagy – <\/b>The president of the National Office for Centralized Acquisitions (ONAC), which organized the acquisition procedure by negotiation without prior publication. She changed the procurement rules after the procedure was completed. The procurements made by ONAC during the pandemic, estimated at 1,3 billion RON, were made without going through a public tender procedure.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Raed Arafat –<\/b> Head of the Emergency Situations Department (DSU). The General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations (IGSU), subordinated to DSU, is in charge with distributing the syringes to the vaccination centres. Arafat intervened for the armed forces to transport the syringes by plane from Qatar, although this had not been mentioned in the initial contract as an obligation of the state.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Irina V\u0103c\u0103rean –<\/b> The director of Nova Tech Med, the company that won the contract, didn’t sell any syringes to hospitals last year. Before setting up the medical equipment company, V\u0103c\u0103rean deceived the state and stole hundreds of thousands RON by transferring several indebted companies to a migrant trafficking network.<\/span><\/p>\n

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CHANGING THE RULES AT THE END<\/b><\/h2>\n

The main criterion for awarding the public contract was the delivery time. According to its offer, Nova Tech Med SRL undertook to deliver the syringes in maximum 24 days and won the framework agreement on January 7, 2021. The contract was signed by both parties on the same day.<\/span><\/p>\n

The syringe unit prices offered by all the companies participating in the selection procedure included the transport fee.<\/span><\/p>\n