Nothing fishy in vaccine deal, says Straughn, urging ‘no need to worry’

Barbadians have no reason to be concerned about how their tax dollars are being used by the Government for purchases or deals brokered for the benefit of the country.

This was the assurance from Minister in the Ministry of Finance, Ryan Straughn following news that a local company procuring COVID vaccines on behalf of the Government was allegedly defrauded of over US$10 million.

Straughn is, however, cautioning business people and prospective dealers to let the “unfortunate” experience of Radical Investments Limited (RIL) be a lesson in exercising due diligence, particularly when engaging in business on the international market.

“I think there’s a clear lesson for all of us really that when people approach you and say that they have ‘x’ that you really do have to make sure that you follow the appropriate due diligence before you pass your money over,” Straughn declared.

“This particular circumstance I think is a lesson for anybody who wants to do business and therefore in the context of what we have said, every time we have had an opportunity where people reached out to us to do certain things, we have done the appropriate due diligence to make sure and ensure that before the Government of Barbados gets into any particular arrangement, that obviously they follow that due diligence,” the finance minister said.

Over the last 24 hours, news emerged that RIL, a St Lucia-registered company linked to local businessman Mark Maloney, is taking numerous entities to court in the US over a US$10.8 million scam to provide 1 million doses of AstraZeneca, which never materialised. According to court documents, the vaccines were being procured on behalf of the Government of Barbados, which intended to purchase 300,000 doses once they arrived on the island.

Like Acting Prime Minister Santia Bradshaw, Straughn explained that Radical Investments, like many other “good will” private entities, was attempting to use its international connections to source vaccines for the Government, understanding that they would only be paid, if and when the doses arrived.

“All I can say is that people have acted in good will to try to bring some normalcy back to the country and I think it is unfortunate that it didn’t work out in the way that they wanted.

“We don’t need one million vaccines and I believe that they were working in concert with other CARICOM nations in order to procure, because as you can imagine, nobody wants to give you 100,000 vaccines,” Straughn explained.

“People are clocking about 20 million, 5 million, 10 million doses and I think in attempting to provide those vaccinations, obviously something went wrong with the due diligence that they didn’t perform…

“Clearly it means that Radical Investments through its efforts in trying to help procure vaccines on behalf of the people of Barbados but also for other CARICOM countries as well, obviously found itself in some arrangement with a third party which clearly was not credible,” the minister added.

Straughn explained that although the country was at the time expecting vaccines through the World Health Organisation’s COVAX arrangement and the African Medical Supplies platform, the doses received would not have been sufficient to vaccinate a large percentage of the population.

As a result, the Government earlier this year agreed to purchase vaccines on the open market at around $48 per dose to supplement the shortfall.

“Having engaged directly with the manufacturers of the vaccines, we have heard the Prime Minister indicate that there are all kinds of middlemen and it’s literally the wild wild west out here. I think what you see here is an example of that, because obviously people are purporting to have access to vaccines, people have paid in good faith to procure vaccines because it’s important to be able to access them. I hope that the court system in the United States can deliver whatever justice they can,” Straughn added. (kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb)