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KUALA LUMPUR: The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Khairy Jamaluddin, has denied allegations that the government had used up all RM3bil of its allocation to buy vaccines from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer that could only cover 20% of the population.
He said that RM3bil’s budget for Covid-19 vaccines will cover all expenses, including transportation and storage.
“Based on the statement allegedly made by the Gua Musang MP that recently went viral, I can categorically state in the Dewan Rakyat that it is unfounded and not accurate at all.
“I cannot disclose the full cost of the acquisition with Pfizer because it is under a confidentiality agreement (NDA).
“But our agreement with Pfizer and Covax is still within our reach of RM3bil for 70% of the population,” he said on Monday (December 7) in his closing speech of his ministry under Budget 2021.
Gua Musang MP Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah had asked the government to disclose the total cost of purchasing Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine, including the cost of storage and logistics.
Umno’s top lawmaker had questioned whether Malaysia is rushing to reach a deal to buy 12.8 million doses that would only cover 6.4 million people or 20% of the population.
“The RM3bil is a general price that includes everything, such as acquisition, storage and transportation,” said Khairy.
Khairy said that the government also does not intend to control any private companies to discuss with international vaccine manufacturers to be their agents or distributors.
“We cannot prevent any of them from making commercial arrangements with international manufacturers.
“However, if they cannot get approval from the National Agency for Pharmaceutical Regulation under the Ministry of Health, they will not be able to bring the vaccines to Malaysia,” he said.
“On behalf of the government, Mosti and the Ministry of Health, we cannot stop companies that do not really have links with the medical or logistics sector, they may try to turn to other industries.
“But I would like to remind market investors that the announcement does not mean that they will get approval for government acquisitions,” he added.
So far, the public procurement only involves Covax (10% of the population) and Pfizer (20% of the population) that were directly conducted with them, respectively, without third parties, Khairy said.
He said that the government had dealt directly with the companies at the factory price given by the companies at no additional cost.
The Dewan Rakyat approved RM935mil for the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation in the 2021 budget.
It was approved by voice vote, which made the 14th ministry approve its budget at the committee stage.
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