Dhiyares Requests Govt to Disclose AstraZeneca Vaccine Costs

Dhiyares, the sister-news outlet of The Maldives Journal, has lodged a request for information on how much the government is spending on the purchase of the COVID-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca.

Dhiyares has lodged the request for all details regarding all of the government’s financials, as per the Right To Information Act, regarding the 700,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine that the government plans to purchase from AstraZeneca. The Health Emergency Operations Centre has refused to disclose this information.

Although the government has spent over MVR 2 Billion in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, independent audit reports show that the government has spent millions of Rufiyaa in ways that may lead to corruption. Examples include making purchases at prices far higher than market-price, and purchases that exist only on paper.