The Ministry of Health and Welfare yesterday said it did not request that the term “independent government of Taiwan” be used in a vaccine procurement contract when discussing the deal with German vaccine developer BioNTech in January 2021.
The ministry made the statement after Hon Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) accused the government of insisting on the term, leading to no deal being reached.
Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Chou Jih-haw (周志浩), a former Centers for Disease Control (CDC) director-general, yesterday presented documents showing that the government sought to use the term “Taiwan Centers for Disease Control, Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Representative Agency of the Republic of China (Taiwan).”
Photo: CNA
Gou, who is vying for the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) nomination to run for president next year, told a campaign rally on Sunday that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) had sent an official to him on Jun. 17, 2021, telling him not to try to purchase vaccines on behalf of the Taiwanese public.
Chinese-language news Web site Ettoday on Tuesday reported that Gou had known that he could not purchase COVID-19 vaccines from BioNTech by Jun. 16, 2021.
The report contained a screengrab of an alleged e-mail by BioNTech shareholder Franz Haniel to Gou on Jun. 16, 2021, saying that “since BioNTech and Fosun are not allowed to sell to anybody other than a government body, there does not seem to be a workable solution.”
Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group is BioNTech’s distribution partner for Taiwan and China.
However, Gou’s office on Tuesday night issued a statement saying that the e-mail also mentioned that the deal fell through because the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) insisted that a public announcement about the agreement must include the term “independent government of Taiwan,” which was unacceptable to Fosun.
Gou’s office said that the DPP prioritized politics above people’s lives.
Chou yesterday showed redacted documents, including the final version of a draft vaccine procurement agreement and e-mail exchanges with BioNTech from January 2021, and a vaccine donation agreement with the Hon Hai-affiliated Yonglin Foundation from June 2021.
He said he had signed the documents with the title “Director-general of Taiwan Centers for Disease Control” and “on behalf of Ministry of Health and Welfare as the Representative Agency of the Republic of China (Taiwan),” and BioNTech did not have a problem with that.
Chou said the government began procurement negotiations with BioNTech on Aug. 20, 2020, which did not reach an agreement, and another round of negotiations began in November that year, resulting in the draft agreement with BioNTech on Dec. 31, 2020.
“In the last phase of the negotiations with BioNTech, it did not object to the content and titles used in the agreement,” he said.
“The problem occurred in the news release we drafted,” which was first discussed on Jan. 8, 2021, he added.
Chou said the first sentence of the news release was: “The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) secured supply of 5 million COVID-19 vaccine doses from German biotechnology company BioNTech,” while the Chinese-language version included the term “my country (我國).”
Showing an e-mail from BioNTech from Jan. 8, 2021, Chou said the company expressed its belief that it is unnecessary to include “my country,” so the CECC immediately revised the news release, replacing it with the term “Taiwan” and sent the new version to BioNTech for review on Jan. 9, 2021.
“However, we haven’t received a reply since then,” he said. “At the time, we believed using the term ‘Taiwan’ should be OK, and if it [BioNTech] has a different opinion, it can express it to us again, but we received no reply.”
Chou said several private groups expressed their intention to purchase vaccines in late May last year, including Gou on behalf of the Yonglin Foundation, which applied on June 1.
Chou said he and then-CECC director Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) even visited Gou at his home the next day, and the ministry approved the application on June 12 last year, even though some additional documents were still needed.
The documents were submitted on June 16, and Hon Hai expressed that it wanted to change the importer to the CDC, he said.
As Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) had also expressed its intention to donate vaccines, Tsai met with representatives of the two companies on June 18, and a task force was established the next day, he said.
After several rounds of discussion, procurement agreements were signed with Hon Hai, the Yonglin Foundation and TSMC on July 11, and another agreement was signed with the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation 10 days later, he said.
He said the CDC is extremely grateful that those entities sent outstanding representatives to work together on reviewing the agreements, adding that he believed they went all-out and did not delay the purchase of the vaccines.
Separately, CDC Director-General Chuang Jen-hsian (莊人祥) yesterday told a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee that Tsai had not pressured ministry officials about the procurement of the BioNTech vaccine.
BioNTech “unilaterally terminated the procurement deal with us in January 2021. The firm neither returned our calls nor our e-mails. All the correspondences have been well documented,” Chuang said in response to a question by KMT Legislator Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷).
Chuang also said that documents related to the procurement of the vaccine cannot be disclosed to lawmakers, as the ministry signed a nondisclosure agreement.
Pressed by Hung if Tsai had pressured health officials about how the procurement of the vaccines should proceed, or showed concerns about the deal, Chuang said: “No, there is no such information from my end.”
Additional reporting by Shelley Shan
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