AIIB: PH’s COVID-19 vaccine purchases above-board

The signboard of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is seen at its headquarter building in Beijing January 17, 2016. | PHOTO: REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

The COVID-19 jabs bought by the Philippine government through loans extended by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have been above-board, the multilateral lenders said.

“Vaccine procurement has been made through direct procurement by the government of Philippines with qualified suppliers. The contracts are reviewed by the ADB and the AIIB before making direct payments to the suppliers, with no-objection letters issued by the ADB,” the Beijing-based AIIB said in a report.

To recall, the Philippines borrowed a total of $2 billion last year from the AIIB, the Manila-based ADB, as well as the Washington-based World Bank, to finance its mass vaccination program against COVID-19. On top of the $1.2 billion secured from the three development banks in March 2021 to buy vaccines, the government borrowed another $800 million on December to purchase booster and pediatric shots. These loans funded the unprogrammed appropriations set aside in last year’s and this year’s national budgets.

The three lenders paid vaccine manufacturers directly for the Department of Health’s (DOH) orders, such that no money passed through the government to avoid corruption.

But the Department of Finance’s (DOF) estimates had shown that these COVID-19-related concessional or low-interest, long-term foreign borrowings needed to be repaid for two generations or until 2060.

For the second health system enhancement to address and limit COVID-19 (Heal 2) project co-financed by the two Asia-based lenders, the AIIB injected $300 million, on top of the ADB’s $400 million, for a total of $700 million.

Of the AIIB’s share, $295.6 million or 98.5 percent had already been spent.

The Heal 2 project targeted to “support the government of the Philippines for rapid procurement of eligible COVID-19 vaccines for up to 50 million Filipinos (43.8 percent of the total population) to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by 2024,” the AIIB noted.

The AIIB said the Philippines, the borrower-country, already overshot the loan’s vaccination target. “As of March 17, 2022, 85.6 million doses of vaccine were procured, and 100 percent of procured doses were received. Among them, 51.8 million doses were administered,” the China-led bank said.

The same AIIB-ADB loan was also financing the establishment of the vaccine information management system (Vims), which the AIIB report said was “progressing.”

“The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is actively providing training and support regionally and at contact centers. The implementation of Vims is well underway to ensure successful roll out of a master-listing and registry of immunization records,” the AIIB said. Vims was already piloted last year to be launched this year and fully implemented next year.

After taking effect in May 2021, Heal 2 will close in September 2024.