Why Are More Egyptians Forging COVID-19's Vaccines'?

"A Kite does not throw away Chicks,” an Egyptian expression, which means the Kite bird, which haunts birds and small animals to feed on their meat, will not throw away the Chicks to other birds.

That example is seen by many as true of Egyptians' fears that the Egyptian government's Coronavirus vaccines will be received free of charge.

Eight years of experience have shown that the Government is kidnapping Egyptian’s money like kite birds, and imposing resolutions and laws on them that increase their financial and economic suffering on a daily basis.

Sources revealed to Al-Estiklal an aspect of corruption in the file of Coronavirus vaccines in Egypt and confirmed that the fears of Egyptians who want to travel abroad and residents of receiving vaccines prompted them to try to obtain official certificates registered in exchange for money proving that they received the vaccine without taking it.

 

Liar Barcode

A source for Al-Estiklal confirmed the sale of "Barcode" certificates for the Coronavirus vaccine in Egyptian hospitals for 5,000 pounds ($320), within Egyptian government agencies for travelers and residents, in exchange for not actually obtaining the vaccine.

A.S., a 30-year-old Egyptian, confirmed that he had received a certificate confirming that he had taken the Coronavirus vaccine, without taking any of the two doses of the vaccine scheduled in Egypt.

"I am supposed to travel within days to a European country, and to obtain a Barcode certificate, I must pay 1,000 Egyptian pounds [$64] officially to any government hospital to prove that I have the vaccine, but there are those who warned me not to take it in Egypt," the source said.

"I went to a government hospital in Al-Sharqiya governorate [north of Cairo] and asked for a certificate, declaring my fear of taking the vaccine, and one of the workers asked me for 1,500 pounds [$95] for it, but I did not get the dose."

"The junior employee asked me for a photo of my passport and national number card, put the amount inside the pictures, and gave it to the senior employee in charge of registering certificates in the name of the Ministry of Health, who can approve and seal the certificate with the government seal (the eagle)," he said.

"Speaking to the young employee during the paperwork tour outside the hospital, he assured me that there were many who came to get that certificate without taking the vaccine, and some of them got it even without coming basically by paying up to 5,000 pounds [$320]," the source said.

He said that “there are doctors from Ain Shams University, university professors and others, including pharmacists, doctors in all disciplines, pilots and distinguished employees, and from high-end areas where barcode was extracted by a senior doctor, who refused to disclose the initials of his name and job, between them and the senior employee."

"The role of the doctor is to send the passport and card photos to his acquaintances and to the applicants for the certificate to us and each individual receives 5,000 pounds for the certificate that we send him in mail, or the owners come to receive them," he said.

"This doctor pays me 1,500 pounds with all the pictures of the passport, of which I have 800 pounds and the senior employee of the hospital gets 650 pounds and the remaining 50 pounds for photographing papers and mailing," he said.

"What prompted these scientific, medical and prestigious figures to do so is their fears about taking the vaccine, their lack of confidence in the distribution of the state for free, and their great concern for their lives and the lives of Egyptians from its doses," the employee said.

"I therefore have no regrets about making it easier for them to obtain a certificate in return for money without getting the vaccine," he said.

The Barcode certificate can be officially obtained from Ministry of Health hospitals, after the vaccine has been scheduled.

The certificate, which amounts to 1,000 Egyptian pounds ($64), and non-tourism, is paid 250 pounds ($16) for Egyptians.

Non-Egyptians also pay $25 for the certificate, according to instructions issued by the Ministry of Health issued on October 16, 2021, which confirmed that vaccines are free of charge to citizens, refugees and non-Egyptians, and that the value of the Barcode certificate does not mean that vaccines are not free.

In the context, Al-Estiklal spotted a group of nurses in a Cairo neighborhood (the neighborhood is not named for the safety of the nursing staff) visiting houses to obtain residents' personal cards and register them in Coronavirus vaccine registration papers, vaccinate those who wish, and register those who do not wish to receive the vaccine as if they have actually received it.

"The last instructions they received were to fill the paperwork and hand over as many papers a day as citizens get the vaccine by registering their names and phone numbers and getting their signatures, whether or not they took the vaccine," said one nurse, who asked not to be named.

"This confirms that the majority of the citizens the nurses spoke to refused to receive the vaccine but registered and signed the vaccine form."

The constant promise from nurses to those who wanted to obtain a vaccine certificate or Barcode was that they could receive it two weeks from the hospital.

However, they refused to register a form for one of the women who was scheduled to travel abroad and advised her to go to the hospital to pay and obtain a certificate.

 

Suspicious Interest

This talk comes against the backdrop of Egyptians' fears of obtaining the vaccine imposed by the Egyptian government on all state employees and university students, mostly from the Chinese vaccine Sinopharm.

The Egyptian government decided on October 17, 2021, to ban employees from entering their workplaces and students as of November 15, 2021, if they did not carry the vaccine, and is also seeking to impose it on schoolchildren.

Despite the government's inability to provide Coronavirus swabs and vaccines in 2020 and early 2021, vaccines have recently been remarkably provided to all government hospitals and even simple rural units free of charge.

The Ministry of Health announced October 17, 2021, that the amount of vaccines reached 63.2 million doses, indicating a large surplus, and that it is trying to accelerate the pace of the vaccine and targeting 40 percent of the population by the end of 2021.

This unusual government interest makes many Egyptians very concerned about the risk of vaccines being dangerous or not undergoing adequate studies, or that they are vaccines that have come to Egypt from international companies and Western countries to test Egyptians.

Fears of the government's insistence on vaccinating Egyptians with Coronavirus vaccines for free are increasing, especially as they say that the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi does not provide free service, and that its main principle in dealing with them is to collect and raise the prices of government services and goods.

Egyptians' fears about Coronavirus vaccines are reinforced by a report in the French magazine Jean Afrique that many Africans are reluctant to vaccine because they fear that vaccines they receive will expire and that they may be "disguised sterilization."

The French magazine 16 July 2021 quoted NGOs’ concerns that doses of donations arriving in Africa would expire so quickly that countries did not have time to campaign for the vaccine.

"The one in charge of the Coronavirus vaccine is the head of the Unified Procurement Authority, Major General Bahaa Zidan, as commissioned by Sisi in April 2020," said Mustafa Jawish, former director of the Ministry of Health.

"This is done on the basis of law (151) of 2019, which authorizes the authority to supply all medicines, vaccines, supplies and equipment for the government," Jawish said.

He said the presence of an army brigade at the head of that body "is the secret of the ambiguity of the statement of the Attorney General [Hamada Al-Sawi] on the case of the recent bribery in the Ministry of Health on October 26, 2021, which was prolonged by the Coronavirus vaccine program."

The fact that Egyptians obtained vaccine certificates without obtaining it, and the registration of citizens' names in the Ministry of Health without the vaccine, refers to an earlier incident of "throwing a vaccine Sinopharm in garbage next to a canal in Minya governorate [Upper Egypt], which is being investigated by the authorities."

He asserts that these facts "have one explanation: that Coronavirus vaccine workers want to achieve high vaccine rates for campaign incentives (together we reassure register immediately), funded by $46 million from U.S. Aid."

"They had no means but to dump the vaccine with garbage and to edit fake records based on vaccine certificates being sold to those who wanted for private money," adds the former Health Ministry official.

"China's Sinopharm vaccine is totally rejected by most Egyptian citizens," he said.

This is due to "the suspicious way he entered the country at Sisi's initiative, before the vaccine received any scientific approvals and in clear violation of who's recommendations."

"This confirms that the statement of the public prosecutor's office in the Minya vaccine incident was full of contradictory statements by the accused without any acceptable explanation for these contradictions," Jawish said.

He also notes that "the report of the Administrative Oversight Authority on the issue of bribery by the Ministry of Health indicated the threads of the case he had been pursuing a month earlier, which was automatically due to the period of the garbage-dumping case."

"All this confirms that the corruption network is complex and extends from the Ministry of Health to all governorates of Egypt," Jawish said.

 

Corona Corruption

A file of "serious corruption" erupted within the Ministry of Health, involving five senior ministry leaders who were arrested on October 26, 2021, by the Administrative Oversight Agency.

Among those arrested were the director of the Free Treatment Department in the ministry and three officials in his administration, in addition to the person responsible for the Coronavirus vaccines, on charges of receiving "financial bribes, financial and administrative corruption, and deliberate damage to public money."

Despite the controversy over the ministry of health bribery and the authorities' imposition of a "media blackout,” a statement came out of the Attorney General's Office on October 27, 2021.

It reveals that there are investigations of some officials without mentioning their names, positions, the minister's relationship with the case or the type of irregularities seized by "administrative oversight."

This corruption case was preceded by other files on Coronavirus vaccines on October 7, 2021, with 40 cartons with more than 13,000 ampoules (packages) of the Sinopharm vaccine found lying on both sides of the canal of the village of Abshaq in the center of Beni Mazar in Minya governorate (Upper Egypt).

Although many states have been corrupted by the Corona file, they have not silenced or ignored it, as is the case in Egypt.

On July 3, 2021, Brazilian prosecutors investigated corruption charges against President Jair Bolsonaro on suspicion of failing to report an attempted corruption at the Ministry of Health when purchasing anti-Coronavirus vaccines.

In South Africa in June 2021, 63 prosecutors were transferred, and 87 companies were blacklisted for Coronavirus vaccine corruption cases.

In February 2021, Peru's health and foreign ministers resigned, with 487 people, including former President Martin Vizcarra, given the vaccine before the Coronavirus vaccine campaign began with health workers.

Argentina issued a list of 70 people who received the vaccine outside the regular frameworks, including Economy Minister and former President Eduardo Duhalde, his wife and their children.

Also in Ecuador, Health Minister Juan Carlos resigned in February 2021 for his involvement in administering a vaccine to people who were not a priority, including members of his family.

Opposition groups and international organizations accuse regime president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of sponsoring corruption, covering up corrupt people, and even participating in corruption under former President Hosni Mubarak.

Among them is the signing of an agreement with the president of The “Beginnings” company, former Minister Rachid Mohamed Rashid (2004-2011), to develop an area of Cairo's Saladin Castle, despite being convicted of corruption in three cases following the January 2011 revolution.

Sisi's permission for Rashid's return from abroad and his participation was preceded by the regime's June 23, 2017, decision to release businessman Hisham Talaat Mustafa from prison in connection with the killing of Lebanese Suzanne Tamim, and to return to his former position under Mubarak in the field of investment.

Ayman Nada, an academic at the Faculty of Media, also confirms the Egyptian regime's sponsorship of corruption.

Financial and administrative corruption involved Cairo University President Osman al-Khasht, who was ignored by the authorities and Nada was arrested on September 19, 2021 and held without investigating corruption files.

Like Nada's case and the regime's disregard for corruption, former head of the Central Accounting Authority Hisham Janina was imprisoned in June 2016, after press statements in 2015, in which he asserted that Egypt's financial corruption amounted to $67.6 billion in four years.

On World Anti-Corruption Day, Sisi claimed on December 9, 2020, that "the state adheres to the rule of law, upholds the values of integrity and rejects corruption practices."

However, in January 2021, Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index revealed that Cairo was reviewing 11 sites in the ranking of the most corrupt countries. Egypt ranked 117th out of 179 countries.