The legislative body gave two readings to the bill that ensures simplified and swift purchase of COVID-19 vaccines. The period between the date of publication of the participation announcement in the Public Procurement Bulletin and the deadline for submitting bids will be reduced from 35 to 10 days. In very urgent cases, the public procurement contracts for the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines will be negotiated without prior publication of the participation announcement, IPN reports.
One of the bill authors, Socialist MP Petru Burduja, said the proposal was drafted with the involvement of most of the members of the Parliament’s Standing Bureau and is aimed at ensuring the vaccination of the population as swiftly as possibly.
Even if the opposition MPs voted for the bill after it was given a first reading, they criticized it. PAS MP Dan Perciun said the law already envisions the possibility of holding direct negotiations, without announcement in advance, and it is not clear what prevented the authorities form initiating these direct negotiations. Moreover, it is not clear why the authorities haven’t yet announced a public contest as the vaccine producers became known long ago and the authorities could have opened talks with them.
PPPDA MP Alexandru Slusari said there are too many coincidences related to the purchases of vaccines. A price that is close to the price of a particular vaccine is stipulated and then this bill is proposed.
The head of the PAS parliamentary group Igor Grosu noted the vaccine should be bought as soon as possible, but there were cases when someone made money using people’s sorrows. The people should know what is bought and from where.
After giving the bill a first reading, the MPs interrupted the sitting and discussed separately amendments to the draft law. When returning to the assembly shall, the head of the commission on economy, budget and finance Petru Burduja said the proposed amendments weren’t supported by a majority of votes of the members of the commission. The amendments were also short of votes in Parliament.
When being put to the vote in the second reading, the bill was supported by 68 MPs.
Under the bill, the provisions refer to purchases of COVID-19 vaccines initiated before December 31, 2021.
