PUTRAJAYA: Around 1.1 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine expired in April 2021 and were destroyed, according to the Auditor-General’s Report on government expenditure in 2021.
The report said RM13 million was wasted in procurement of 93 ventilators that could not be used.
The issue of expired vaccines was also highlighted by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim last month when he said that Malaysia had five to six million doses left in stock after expired doses were destroyed because of poor demand.
Auditor-General Nik Azman Nik Abdul Majid said the audit also found that the filling of nursing positions did not match staffing requirements and did not follow the level of care ratio.
The department also said that its audit found that state governments have yet to return RM145 million from the National Trust Fund.
In December 2021, then finance minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz told the Dewan Rakyat that the government decided to use RM6 billion from the fund, a RM1 billion increase, to ensure a sufficient supply of vaccines, including booster doses, for both the adult population and teenagers.
The withdrawal was authorised by an emergency ordinance which allowed the government to make withdrawals from the fund, from which the government had made only one withdrawal since 1988.
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