13 February 2024
Ref: DOIA 2324-0560
M Bell
Email:
[FYI request #24078 email]
Tēnā koe M Bell
Thank you for your email of 4 November to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE)
requesting, following up our response to you under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act) of 2
November. In that email you clarified:
I was asking for the actual procurement documents, not the already available summary
information or the auditor general report which I have already seen. Please provide the actual
documents (understand there will likely be redactions where valid).
Because the purchasing of vaccines was a novel process undertaken directly through Ministerial and
Cabinet decision making, there was not a single procurement plan as you would expect for routine
departmental purchasing. Instead the procurement process is set out across several documents. The key
documents are:
• The briefing “COVID-19 Vaccine Strategy – Purchasing Strategy and funding envelope”
• The Cabinet paper “COVID-19 Vaccine Strategy: Purchasing Strategy and Funding Options (CAB-
20-MIN-0382)
• The key purchase decisions for each of the vaccines which outline how these decisions were
operationalised in practice.
The first two documents are available on the COVID-19 Proactive Release website and were released on 9
October 2020 under the Health response heading. These documents are referred to in the Ministry of
Health summary of vaccine purchasing. The direct link to the relevant section of the COVID-19 Proactive
Release website is:
https://covid19.govt.nz/about-our-covid-19-response/proactive-releases/health-response/
The purchase decisions were provided to you in our previous release.
We have also identified one further document that could be considered to fall within the description of a
procurement strategy or plan. This is a briefing “COVID-19 Vaccine Strategy – Framework to guide
purchase decisions”, which is used in the purchase decisions that have been previously released to you.
Some of the information requested has been withheld under the following sections of the Act:
• 6(a), that the making available of the information would be likely to prejudice the security or
defence of New Zealand or the international relations of the Government of New Zealand;
• 6(b)(i), that the making available of the information would be likely to prejudice the entrusting of
information to the Government of New Zealand on a basis of confidence by the Government of
any other country or any agency of such a Government
MBIE1376631
• 9(2)(ba)(i), to protect information which is subject to an obligation of confidence or which any
person has been or could be compelled to provide under the authority of any enactment, where
the making available of the information would be likely to prejudice the supply of similar
information, or information from the same source, and it is in the public interest that such
information should continue to be supplied.
With regard to information withheld under s9(2)(ba)(i), I do not consider that the withholding of this
information is outweighed by public interest considerations in making the information available.
If you wish to discuss any aspect of your request or this response, or if you require any further assistance,
please contact
[email address]. You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision. Information
about how to make a complaint is availab
le at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802
602.
Nāku noa, nā
Simon Rae
Policy Director – Emerging Technologies
Science, Innovation and International
