Article by Tim Hanstad. World Economic Forum.
July 15, 2020.
The global pandemic has public health experts and medical providers around the world working overtime. And so, it seems, are profiteers.
Even before the pandemic, an estimated $455 billion of the $7.35 trillion spent annually on healthcare worldwide was lost to fraud and corruption. Today, as governments are ramping up pandemic response spending to unprecedented levels and shovelling it out of the door with understandable urgency and desperation, the risk of corruption and misappropriation has increased exponentially. A recent survey by a German anti-fraud consulting company found that a majority of the 58 countries surveyed experienced corruption related to purchasing and/or access to personal protective equipment. And a report from the Lawyers Council for Civil and Economic Rights found that government contracts for the coronavirus response have been riddled with irregularities in dozens of countries.
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