ICW Questions BNPB To Allow The Procurement Of COVID-19 Test Kits To Expire

Illustration (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) researcher Dewi Anggraeni has monitored the procurement of a COVID-19 test kit in the form of a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) reagent.

Dewi said, there were several cases of purchasing test kits that were carried out at hospitals in East Java, but they were returned to the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) because they were about to expire.

The types of goods returned were the PCR reagents with the Liferiver brand totaling 1,850 devices. The provider is PT SIP.

"There was a medical device held by BNPB which was then returned to BNPB on September 3, 2020. The reason for returning the PCR reagent with the Liferiver brand is because this condition is approaching its expiration date, which is 19 October 2020," said Dewi in a virtual discussion, Thursday, March 18. .

Dewi suspects, BNPB only checks based on the number of goods received and does not see the quality. One of them is the expiration period.

"In ICW monitoring, it was found that this item was not checked. So, the procurement of this item was not checked carefully in detail during the handover of the procurement," said Dewi.

In this condition, said Dewi, it could show that in the process of procuring medical devices, BNPB was suspected of deliberately neglecting the process of checking the expiration date of the goods.

If these stages of procurement are neglected, the impact is that our calculated potential state loss is IDR 693.7 million because the goods returned are not used.

Dewi questioned whether BNPB anticipated the risk of procuring medical devices or procured products to become unusable because they were close to expiration date.

"If so, what are the consequences? What is included in the contract, what sanctions will be accepted by the provider," said Dewi.

"But if not, it means that it is very unfortunate because goods with such a large state budget must then be returned and piled up in the BNPB warehouse until they cannot be used," he continued.