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No fraud in Sinopharm purchase: Channa

01 Jun 2021

  • Responds to Sajith’s claim of Bangladesh purchasing at lower price

By Buddhika Samaraweera   State Minister of the Production, Supply, and Regulation of Pharmaceuticals Prof. Channa Jayasumana, in a Facebook post, denied allegations of a fraud in Sri Lanka purchasing the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine for $ 15 when Bangladesh had bought the same for $ 10. He claimed that the Chinese Embassy in Colombo and the Beijing-based Bio-Institute of Biological Products Co. Ltd., which manufactures Sinopharm, have informed him that there is no agreement to provide the Sinopharm vaccine to Bangladesh for $ 10. He further noted in the said Facebook post that its price is still under discussion. “Argentina gets it for $ 40, Hungary for $ 36, and Senegal for $ 18.60,” he further claimed. Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa, in a recent statement, alleged that a dose of the Sinopharm vaccine imported to Sri Lanka costs $ 15, approximately Rs. 3,000, but that it has now been revealed that Bangladesh purchases the same vaccine for $ 10, approximately Rs. 2,000 per dose. He has said in the statement that the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers had been obtained to import 14 million Sinopharm vaccines. Accordingly, the total cost is $ 210 million (Rs. 42,000 million). But the cost of 14 million doses of vaccines is only $ 140 million, when considering the price at which Bangladesh purchases the vaccine, the statement claimed. “Accordingly, the Government should reveal to the country as to what happened to the remaining $ 70 million (Rs. 14,000 million),” Premadasa said in the statement, claiming that the Government has made the vaccination a way of making a profit. However, the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka on 29 May had tweeted about recent rumours circulating on social media that Bangladesh purchases the Sinopharm vaccine for less than the amount Sri Lanka spends. In the Twitter message, the Embassy said: “We checked with the Chinese Embassy in Dhaka. The Bangladeshi Health Minister has clarified that their procurement agreement including the price is not yet finalised.” It was also mentioned in the said Twitter message issued by the Embassy that the fake news spread on social media had already disrupted the ongoing negotiations. The Embassy, in another Twitter message, stated that it is a common practice where prices differ across pharmaceutical companies and that the vaccine being provided to Sri Lanka is being provided at the best corporate price with the fastest delivery. Meanwhile, government sources told The Morning that the price of the vaccine was negotiated by a high-level pricing committee. They added that the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers has been granted to purchase the vaccine at the current price. Several attempts to contact President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Chief Advisor Lalith Weeratunga, who is entrusted with the duty of co-ordinating the process of importing vaccines against Covid-19, Prof. Jayasumana, State Ministry Secretary K.R. Uduwavala, and State Pharmaceuticals Corporation (SPC) Chairman Dr. Prasanna Gunasena to inquire about this proved futile.


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