Transparency International (TI) is encouraging citizens to get involved with their government’s Covid-19 vaccination regimes and systems. Any citizen has a right to know how their government’s decisions are made and taxpayer resources are spent. Especially when it comes to health issues, citizens are entitled to transparency regarding decisions and actions that are taken on their behalf.
Transparency around the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines has been a hot topic in South Africa too. Corruption Watch has engaged with National Treasury to seek clarity on the processes that will be used for procurement as well as any deviations from those processes. The organisation also expressed its concerns that we will see more looting on the scale of that which happened when government instituted emergency procurement measures for procurement of personal protective equipment. Oversight must be tightened and compliance must be non-negotiable.
To help people understand their rights and request critical information about Covid-19 vaccines, TI has created a request template. This, says the organisation, is a “global baseline model for civil society organisations, academia and media to request information on vaccines and treatments against Covid-19 to governments around the world”.
The questions can be adapted to national legal frameworks and realities, TI adds.
Download the query template for Covid-19-related requests to government.
Refer to this series of infographics for more information on making this type of request:
