Minority rejects drone deal

The Minority National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Parliament yesterday completely rejected a contract agreement between the Ministry of Health and Fly Zipline Ghana Limited for the delivery of emergency health and blood products to public health facilities in remote communities in the country by the use of drones.

The Minority, led by the ranking member of the Finance Committee, Ato Forson and the minority leader, Haruna Iddrisu, said the cost involved is too much while value for money audit was not considered in the contract.

The Minority said the government has also resorted to sole sourcing for the award of the contract even though the contract was not that urgent.

The ranking member on Finance contended the issue of government paying $88,000 per month per one distribution centre was captured in the report of the Health Committee presented to the House yesterday for approval, stressing that the actual figure the government will be paying to Zipline every month is $145,000 and not what has been presented to parliament for approval.

According to Ato Forson, who is the NDC MP for Ajumako/Enyan/Essiam in the Central Region, the Ministry of Health’s service agreement and the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) presented to Parliament said the ministry was to pay $134,000 plus $11,000 add-on in a month.

He said while Zipline is investing just $1 million per distribution centre, the government will end up paying $7 million a month to the private company, which means that per a distribution centre, Zipline will be reaping abnormal profit of over 640% per centre and over 2,000% profit for the four centres that it will be operating.

The Minority also did not see the need for the contract to be awarded through sole sourcing while issues were also raised about certification for Zipline to operate the drones.

The minority leader said the amount being used for the project could have been used to improve maternal and child care in the country because a lot of pregnant women are having difficulty accessing health care due to financial problems.

The Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, maintained that the service cost is still $88,000 per month and that the cost would be borne by the donor community and not the government since public funds would not be used to pay for the services.

The Vice Chairman of the Health Committee and New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Effiduase/Asokore, Dr Nana Ayew Afriye, said the Minority must not do politics with matters affecting the health of the people.

He said NDC politicians always identify themselves with the poor in the society and now that a contract is being awarded to supply essential drugs and blood products to the poor people receiving medical attention at Community-based Health Planning Services (CHPS) in very remote communities, the NDC is kicking against it.

He, therefore, asked the Minority NDC to recognize the importance of timely medical care for the poor.

At the end of the debate, the first deputy speaker, Joseph Osei-Owusu, who was presiding, refused to put the question to vote because of the outstanding issues raised by the minority and asked the Committee on Health to go back and address the issues of authorisation and outstanding regulatory approval before the House could finally approve the contract to avoid any legal problems.