The government should release information about its vaccine procurement budget, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said yesterday.
In a video recording, Chiang accused the government of attempting to avoid oversight, saying that in principle the information should be made available to the public.
The National Audit Office has said that the government’s budget for the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines is not classified, he added.
Citing the Freedom of Government Information Act (政府資訊公開法), Chiang said if information is in the public interest it should be made available, and the government cannot refuse to provide information on the grounds that it has signed a confidentiality agreement.
Taiwan has signed contracts to purchase about 20 million vaccine doses from abroad, including 5.05 million doses from Moderna, 10 million doses from AstraZeneca and 4.76 million unspecified brands through the COVAX global distribution program. The government has also signed contracts to buy 10 million doses of vaccines produced by two domestic firms.
Chiang, who is a member of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, said that many budgets related to the nation’s defense and diplomatic efforts are classified, and the committee holds confidential meetings to review them.
“Classified information may even be provided to lawmakers for oversight, not to mention that the vaccine budget is not a classified budget,” he said.
Citing President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) remarks last year that the more transparent information is, the more effective COVID-19 prevention would be, Chiang said the Ministry of Health and Welfare should disclose how the vaccine procurement budget was spent, including which brands and how many doses of COVID-19 vaccines were purchased, the amount that was spent and when the vaccines can be expected to arrive.
Separately yesterday, KMT Legislator Lin Yi-hua (林奕華) said that Tsai should consider appointing special representatives for vaccine procurement.
She wrote on Facebook that if the government could not purchase COVID-19 vaccines from overseas suppliers, it should allow private companies to do so on its behalf.
Private companies have proven their ability to overcome the resistance the government speaks of, but the nation should not rely on donations from private companies for “all vaccine procurements,” she wrote.
She urged Tsai to follow the “APEC model” and appoint Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀), who is Taiwan’s APEC representative, and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) as special representatives for the procurement of vaccines.
TSMC and Hon Hai have each pledged to donate 5 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses to the government.
Since domestically developed COVID-19 vaccines have not yet received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, the government should first purchase adequate supplies of international vaccines, Lin added.
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