Black business appealed to President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday to make space for their businesses in the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines when the rollout takes place.
Black business groupings held a high-level engagement with the ANC’s top six officials, hosted by the Progressive Business Forum, a fundraising arm of the ANC. Participants were briefed on the vaccine programme by deputy minister of health Joe Phaahla and senior department of health official Aquina Thulare.
Kganki Matabane, CEO of the Black Business Council (BBC), sai “there are value chain opportunities that will arise and its important that we don’t forget black economic empowerment and companies that are run by women and youth”.
George Sebulela, founder of the SA United Business Council, which is a splinter of the BBC, also encouraged the ANC to make the rollout “more inclusive” as the council “does have members in the health sector”.
Zama Khanyile, representative of the African Women’s Chartered Account Forum, called for finance to help black companies participate in the rollout.
But while Ramaphosa said he emphatically supported effective black business participation in the vaccine rollout, he said there would not be “a plethora of opportunities”.
“The channel is government which purchases; the distribution is going to be the area where we can find opportunities, and this is where business organisations should get together so we can look at the contribution they can make. We want to support black businesses,” he said.
Phaahla also expressed some caution on the scope for private sector involvement, saying that partly state-owned company Biovac, which handles, stores and distributes vaccines, would be responsible for receiving the stock and storing it.
Biovac is a public-private partnership in which the state owns 47.5% with a majority stake held by a private consortium led by Immunotek.
“Biovac will be receiving it, inspecting it and storing it. In dealing with logistics, because of the cold-chain requirements, we have asked that the suppliers transport it to provinces as far as possible. But they might not want to and so there will be opportunities and we will look at big and small companies,” said Phaahla.
The vaccines so far approved in the rest of the world have varying cold-storage requirements. The Pfizer vaccine, for instance, requires storage at -70°C, while the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine requires temperatures of between -2°C and -8°C.
The government is still reeling from the damage caused in the procurement of personal protective equipment, in which dozens of politically connected business people secured contracts and charged extortionate prices for basic goods.
Ramaphosa said corruption will be prevented in the vaccine rollout, particularly as procurement is centralised and must be done by the government itself.
LISTEN | Dr Anban Pillay answers our vaccine questions
Subscribe for free: iono.fm | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Player.fm
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.