2 Govt Officials behind Self-paid Covid-19 Vaccination Plan: Expert

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - An epidemiologist with the University of Indonesia (UI) Pandu Riono on Wednesday commented on the controversial self-paid Covid-19 vaccination program recently launched, which he believes did not come from Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin.

Accordingto Pandu, the idea was initially pitched by the ‘Covid-19 handling and national economic recovery committee’ (KPC-PEN) led by Coordinating Minister of Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto and State-owned Enterprises Minister Erick Thohir. 

“It’s quite impossible for the idea to come from the Health Minister. Who are the perpetrators? Airlangga along with Erick, both of them,” said the epidemiologist to Tempo on July 14. 

Pandu Riono said that the Health Minister was pressured to harmonize sets of regulations to accommodate the private-paid vaccination program and that the Health Minister was cornered into the situation. 

“But he was his former boss when he was the SOEs deputy minister. I told about this many times on Twitter, the Health Minister was pressured,” said Pandu.

The Tweet he referred to was his comment on a statement made by the Health Ministry’s vaccination spokesperson Siti Nadia Tarmizi, who denied that the Health Ministry was pressured by the SOEs Ministry. The epidemiologist argued that such a statement is dangerous as it indirectly implies that the private vaccination program came from the Health Ministry itself. 

“Minister Budi would not do such a thing. He’s now the Health Minister, his main target is to fast-track vaccinations. But he is also being pressured about issues regarding medicines and vaccines.”

Pandu suspects that the KPC-PEN is worried that the state-owned pharmaceutical firm Bio Farma had already purchased ‘gotong royong’ vaccines in advance but failed to attract businesses to purchase the vials. According to him, the current scheme is to avoid the pharmaceutical firm from losing too much money.

The gotong royong vaccination program was initially launched by the Indonesian government to provide Covid-19 vaccination for private enterprises to vaccinate their employees. 

“The problem is they are worried that they had bought too many in advance but business owners backed out of the program because of its high cost. [They should have] donated the unused vaccines rather than keeping it until it expires,” said Pandu Riono. 

In a report with Tempo Magazine, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin revealed that the paid Covid-19 vaccination program was initially discussed in the KPC-PEN meeting at the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs headquarters on June 26. Following the meeting, he issued the Health Ministry’s Regulation No.19/2021 - based on the input of the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs - which is the legal basis of the paid vaccination program. 

Read: Kadin: 10.5 Million People Registered for Gotong Royong Covid-19 Vaccination

BUDIARTI UTAMI PUTRI | CAESAR AKBAR