By Sue-Ann Wayow
GOVERNMENT has spent roughly between $70 to $75million on vaccine purchase says Minister of Finance Colm Imbert.
Speaking during a Ministry of Finance press conference on Monday, Imbert also said Trinidad and Tobago also received a lot of vaccine donation, more than anticipated.
He had previously indicated that Government had enough money to spend on vaccines which could have been over $100million to $130million.
Imbert said, “The actual expenditure so far is still the $70 to $75million TT dollar rate. We have had quite a lot of donations… We have not yet been called upon by the Africa Vaccine Alliance Trust to pay for the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, except to pay for the first batch that is now on its way about 100,000 of them.
We made a down payment for that, that is why we are up to TT $75million for vaccines and I still think we will round out at the number we had projected earlier $120million, somewhere in that vicinity for vaccines. But, we are getting far more vaccines than originally anticipated.”
The minister also said that no money was used from the loan agreement with China as that loan was still being finalised.
“All of the vaccines we have purchased so far, we have used general revenues because of the importance of it. We did not wait for anything. We have used general revenues earned at the Ministry of Finance from taxation and wherever to purchase vaccines,” Imbert said.
Some 15% of the loan would have to be used for Chinese goods which includes vaccines.
However, Imbert said all monies used for vaccine purchase was spent from general revenue.
Monies have been paid for the purchase of AstraZeneca vaccines from the Covax Facility, to China for the purchase of Sinopharm and to the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT) for 800,000 single doses of Johnson and Johnson.
The first batch of 108,000 doses of the Johnson and Johnson are expected to arrive soon.
Given the donations of the AstraZeneca vaccines from Canada and the Pfizer from the US, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley had said government may not eventually purchase all 800,000 doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.
