But the Anti-Corruption Action Centre has shown that it is possible to battle corruption and win. We would like to share our success story and invite other activists to follow suit.
Ukrainian society is accustomed to the image of prisons as overcrowded and closed institutions, where the healthy can become sick and the sick too often die. History shows the public can do little to improve conditions.
However, the Anti-Corruption Action Centre – in cooperation with the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption – managed to stop corruption in prisons and to improve medical treatment of inmates diagnosed with TB and HIV/AIDS.
According to the International Center for Prison Studies, Ukraine’s prisons are overcrowded. Nearly 135,000 people are confined to prisons and detention centers meant to hold only about 122,000 people. Almost 20 percent of inmates have not been convicted of any crime yet.
The conditions in Ukrainian prisons are notoriously poor, fueling the spread of TB and HIV/AIDS among inmates, according to numerous international organizations.
At the beginning of this year, the Penitentiary Service in Ukraine reported 6,957 HIV-positive inmates and the number of TB patients is also rising. The 2013 state budget assigned an average of Hr 36.1 ($4.50) per month for inmates with HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.
Considering how meager the amount is for treating such serious illnesses, one would expect the Penitentiary Service to seek opportunities to buy medicines from producers as cheaply as possible. However, our analysis of public procurement tenders indicated the opposite.
On April 29, the Penitentiary Service of Ukraine announced a public procurement tender for TB, ARV medicines and basic antiseptics. The tender was worth approximately Hr 5.8 million. When the Anti-Corruption Action Centre analyzed the amount of drugs to be purchased and the price per unit of required drugs, its calculations showed that the price per unit was much higher than similar purchases by the Ministry of Health. It was a few times higher than purchases by charity organizations providing those in need with TB and HIV/AIDS drugs.
Apparently, this was not the first time the Penitentiary Service went on a shopping spree at the state’s expense. The tender of the beginning of 2013 showed that the Penitentiary Service of Ukraine paid Hr 130 ($16) per 1,000 mg bottle of Kapreomicine, while the Ministry of Health bought the same drug for Hr 110 ($13) per bottle, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for Hr 45 ($5.6).
Such extravagance of the Penitentiary Service of Ukraine would definitely curtail the number of inmates who could have received necessary treatment in prisons and would have condemned those who cannot get the drugs or receive them from their families to death.
The study of the tender conditions put forward by the Penitentiary Service showed that the lowest price for TB drugs constituted Hr 4.1 million (more than $500,000). This price was 25 percent higher than the corresponding price in similar public procurement tenders by the Ministry of Health.
Had the Penitentiary Service used the prices of the Ministry of Health’s tenders as reference, it would have saved Hr 1 million ($125,000). Had they used the prices of the Global Fund, the savings would have run to more than Hr 2 million ($250,000).
But the Penitentiary Service of Ukraine preferred to use the Register of Prices for Medicines as their guideline, because the register allowed them to justify the highest price for medicines and allegedly increased their share in “payoffs.”
The Register of Prices of Medicines has the highest prices of the medicines in Ukraine possible, allegedly to compensate for possible complementary expenses, such as currency exchange rate, inflation, etc. The Register of Prices is a subject of approval by the Ministry of Health, but even the Ministry of Health has its public procurement prices lower then ones in the Register.
When the Anti-Corruption Action Centre addressed the Penitentiary Service indicating unduly high prices in their tenders, the Penitentiary Service responded that their prices were in compliance with the Register of Prices for Medicines of the Ministry of Health.
The Anti-Corruption Action Centre, in cooperation with the representative of the Ukrainian Chapter of the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption Lesya Orobets appealed to the State Financial Inspection and explained that the Register of Prices of Medicines has prices that are much higher than producers’ prices and instead of being a guideline for fair prices is often used as a legitimate excuse to increase prices in public procurement tenders and facilitate corruption.
In response to the above appeals and pressure, the Penitentiary Service canceled its tender on June 20. The Penitentiary Service announced a new tender, but its value dropped by Hr 1 million. In an interesting twist of the plot, both the previous and the current tenders were won by SKYFARM, who just adjusted the price following public pressure.
This story is an illustration of how the combined efforts of people who care can stop corruption even in such closed institutions as prisons. We hope this case study becomes an encouragement for other pressure groups to fight corruption in the government and not just in public procurement.
Halyna Senyk is member of the board of directors of the Anti-Corruption Action Centre in Kyiv, a non-governmental organization.
