Public health and law initiative, the Health Justice Initiative (HJI), will approach the Gauteng High Court on Tuesday to get the Department of Health (DoH) to disclose the records relating to vaccine procurement contracts that it concluded with manufacturers and suppliers, as well as records of negotiations with those parties.

More than 38-million Covid-19 vaccine doses were administered in the country by June 2023 and this has been driven by South Africa’s ability to buy directly from pharmaceutical companies, through the COVAX facility and by donations.

The 2021 National Budget allocated an amount of R10-billion for the purchase of Covid-19 vaccines and, given the great cost of acquiring these, the HJI has bemoaned the secrecy surrounding the details of these contracts as they deem this to be a matter of public interest.

“There is a heightened need for transparency and accountability especially during the national disaster, where several of the usual checks and balances are limited. Disclosure is even more important in the health sector following serious allegations that, globally, powerful pharmaceutical companies bullied countries into signing secret contracts at the time and, locally, that corruption has diverted millions of rands away from Covid-19 relief measures and other health services. Therefore, then and now, and especially under NHI, we must ensure that the procurement of public goods using public funds includes the highest levels of contractual transparency too,” said HJI head Fatima Hassan.

She also referred to the HJI’s previous attempt, in 2021, to acquire details of vaccine procurement contracts through the Promotion of Access to Information Act, which the government refused.

“Essentially, our government traded secrecy for scarce supplies at the behest of very powerful vaccine manufacturers and intermediaries, who made huge profits on sales. Our government should stand up to these companies. By agreeing to these onerous Non-Disclosure Agreements our government is enabling secrecy that only pharma companies can benefit from,” Hassan added.

The DoH has argued that it cannot disclose the details of procurement contracts as they are bound by confidentiality clauses that preclude disclosure and they have deemed public disclosure as prejudicial of it and the vaccine manufacturers in future engagements.