Brazil’s top prosecutor has requested an investigation of president Jair Bolsonaro over allegations he did not act on concerns of corruption within the procurement of coronavirus vaccines from India.
The rightwing populist has been accused of dereliction of duty after a whistleblower claimed to possess personally raised with him suspicions of wrongdoing during a R$1.6bn ($320m) deal to accumulate 20m jabs of Covaxin.
With quite half 1,000,000 lives lost to Covid-19 in Latin America’s most populous nation, the controversy is popping into a serious political headache for Brasília as its handling of the pandemic comes under intense scrutiny from a congressional inquiry.
The prosecutor-general’s office on Friday announced the opening of a search into Bolsonaro, which a supreme court justice must now formally authorise. The president’s office didn’t answer an invitation for comment.
Ministers have denied irregularities within the Covaxin agreement, which involved an intermediary company, while insisting that no money has been paid since no batches of the shots have yet been delivered. Federal prosecutors are already looking into the deal.
The case emerged after a health department employee, Luis Ricardo Miranda, claimed he was unduly pressured to log off contracts containing supposed irregularities.
The civil servant’s brother, a federal lawmaker, told the Covid-19 parliamentary panel they shared suspicions with Bolsonaro which he promised to require action. However, police said the matter wasn’t reported.
Following the hearing, three senators in the week lodged a complaint of malfeasance against the president at the supreme court, which led to the request for an investigation.
A separate scandal over vaccine procurement exploded in the week in Brazil after a businessman claimed a government official requested bribes to secure a supply contract.
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