Internal documents from the Ministry of Health show that the ministry established special conditions for contracting without bidding a company for the transport of pediatric vaccines against Covid-19 and, in the course of the process of waiving competition, expanded the benefits provided, which ended up prevailing. in the final version of the contracts.
The first version of the contracts, dated December 7, provided for a term of validity of 12 months, extendable for successive periods while the declaration of public health emergency due to the pandemic lasts, a definition in charge of the Ministry of Health.
The second draft, inserted into the portfolio system on December 21, opened up the possibility of an extendable period of up to five years, even in the case of an emergency contract, without bidding.
The Ministry of Health, in a note, said that there was no change in understanding and that the legal opinion used in the analysis of the contract was “emphatic” in affirming the feasibility of the period of up to five years.
According to the folder, the wording is in line with the bidding law and with what is recommended by the legal department, as it is a continuous service.
The term of up to five years prevailed in the two contracts signed with IBL (Intermodal Brasil Logística) on December 22. The company said that vaccine distribution and packaging services are taking place with high safety standards.
One contract is for the storage of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccines, the other for transport, both at a temperature of -90ºC to -60ºC. The value of the services is R$ 62.2 million.
An opinion by the AGU (Advocacy-General of the Union), prepared by lawyers who work in legal consulting with the Ministry of Health, considered it reckless to establish a period of up to five years for the contracts, due to the choice of a company without bidding, such as leaf showed in a report published this Tuesday (25).
Even so, the term of five years appeared in the drafts after the legal opinion and in the definitive contracts.
In an October document, which detailed how the invitation would be given to companies interested in the service, the ministry expressed its intention to allow a period of 30 days between the signing of contracts and the start of operations.
“In this call, we seek to know if it is feasible for the market to take this time for the start of activities”, stated the DLOG (Department of Health Logistics) in the document.
In the end, the ministry doubled this adaptation period, to 60 days, as stated in the basic project that supports the two contracts.
“In view of the uniqueness of the contract, the Ministry of Health adopts a maximum period of 60 consecutive days between the signing of the contract and the beginning of operations”, cites the project. “In this interstice of time, the contracting party will carry out validation of the operation to be carried out by the contractor, both the storage and the transport.”
IBL said it had not used the 60 days of adaptation to start operations.
“The period between the signing of the contract and the start of operations was extended from 30 to 60 days, taking into account the challenges raised during the technical visits by the suppliers to start operations in such a short period”, the ministry said in a note. According to the folder, the change increased competition and provided isonomy in hiring.
The contracted company, which had no experience with transporting vaccines in the SUS, is responsible for delivering Pfizer immunizers to children aged 5 to 11 years.
The first deliveries were marked by problems such as flight delays, lack of staff at airports, head-banging over who should transport the immunizers to state warehouses, improper storage conditions and over-freezing of doses.
The legal opinion on the contracting process pointed to a lack of justification for the waiver of bidding and a delay in the quantities of Pfizer doses to be transported –16.6 million vials, or 100 million doses.
After the appointment, the DLOG justified that the rite of a public bidding process would be lengthy, requiring the adoption of different procedures and consultation with different instances. The legislation for purchases in the pandemic guarantees the waiver, according to the department.
The bidding process took almost five months. It started on August 3rd and ended with the contracting of IBL on December 22nd.
The lag in the amounts of doses could be resolved by means of a contractual amendment, according to the ministry.
Regarding the prices charged, defined solely from consultations with interested companies, the AGU’s opinion stated that there should have been an analysis of the costs of vaccine deliveries made before the new contracts, in addition to an assessment of what went wrong in the contract with VTCLog, in force since 2018.
Army General Ridauto Lúcio Fernandes, director of DLOG, sent letters asking for urgency in the waiver of bidding and contracting and signed the contracts shortly thereafter.
Regarding the notes of the AGU’s opinion, the Ministry of Health stated that the contracting followed the necessary legal procedures and that the signed contracts are in accordance with what the legal opinion recommends.
“All the contracts of this ministry are monitored and inspected by teams designated for that”, he said.
IBL offered the lowest price and there was an analysis of the costs of previous deliveries, but “there are no prices for comparison”, as they are vaccine doses to be kept and transported between -90ºC and -60ºC, according to the ministry.
“We use all the parameters of the normative instruction of price research of the Ministry of Economy, to choose the most advantageous proposal for the administration”, he said.
An inspection process, still under analysis, investigates failures in the delivery of pediatric vaccines, according to the ministry.
IBL stated that the services meet the high standards required in the public call with no bidding process.
“We are maintaining, during operations, a considerable contingent of professionals of the highest caliber, ready to ensure that any demands are met. All steps under our responsibility were carried out with excellence, without any damage or risk to the quality of vaccines” , he said.
According to the company, the integrity of the vaccines was not compromised by loss of temperature.
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