The Accountant General of the Ministry of Finance, Yahli Rotenberg, sharply criticized the conduct of the Ministry of Health with regard to the purchases of antigen and PCR tests.
Last night, Rotenberg sent a letter to the director general of the Ministry of Health, Prof. Nachman Ash, entitled "Economic inefficiency in purchasing and performing corona tests."
"According to all estimates, we are expected to deal with the effects of the epidemic for some time to come and we must recognize this, also in the world of economic planning and procurement. A review of contracts made by the Ministry of Health, Corona tests and their actual performance, "Rotenberg wrote.
Rothenberg later detailed "barriers to entry, as well as the manner in which tenders and structural failures were carried out" which, in his opinion, led to an increase in testing prices and a waste of resources.
Yahli Rotenberg, Accountant General in the Ministry of Finance, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
Regarding the PCR tests, Rothenberg notes that the firm's requirements from importers actually create a monopoly: "In the field of PCR tests, to the best of our knowledge, there is currently a requirement for the importer of equipment to approve the test laboratory for the type of consumables possible. Consumables that operate in accordance with the same standard. "
"When it comes to sampling PCR tests, there are tens of percent gaps between different providers. Even after taking into account the operational differences between the various test complexes, the price of NIS 49 is very significantly higher than the normative cost of the service, which is conservatively estimated at about "35 shekels per test. This difference for about 3 million tests a month is equivalent to almost 42 million shekels a month (after VAT)," warned the accountant general.
In his remarks, the Accountant General details the failures in purchasing antigen tests - for the institutional antigen test, the ministry pays NIS 37-52 per test, while market prices range from 22-27 per test.
According to Rotenberg, this difference amounts to hundreds of millions of shekels.
The reasons for the high prices paid by the Ministry of Health are, among other things, through the management of tenders, which "create barriers to entry that may prevent various companies with innovative and cheap solutions. Participate in tenders."
Beyond that, according to Rotenberg's letter, most purchases from the Ministry of Health are made in packages containing 20,2,1 antigen tests, while purchases of packages containing a higher number of tests (50 or 100) would have significantly reduced the price.
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
If you found an error in the article, we'll be happy for you to share it with us