Mr Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, Minister of Health, has revealed what happened in the Zipline contract to provide drone services in healthcare delivery.
Speaking at the Government’s Accountability Series Press Conference at the Presidency in Accra, Mr Akandoh remembered that a contract was signed in 2018 and went into force in 2019.
He stated that the arrangement included “take or pay” stipulations and that the document was so sourced.
“Currently, for every month, the Ghana Government is supposed to pay $88,000 per center a month,” he said.
He said there were six centers, which meant the government was paying little more than half a million dollars each month for drone services.
“What is more interesting, I think everybody needs to know, is the fact that in the beginning of this contract, the idea was that we’re not going to use the government of Ghana money to pay the services of the drones,” according to him.
According to the Health Minister, his predecessor, Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, was asked on the floor of Parliament why the Minister responsible for Finance’s signature was missing from the contract.
“Mr Speaker, I would want to stress again that the honorable minister for finance did not put his signature on because this is not going to be done from the consolidated account. The public purse is not going to come in here.” Mr. Agyeman-Manu stated, among other things.
According to Mr. Akandoh, the entire conversation stemmed from their refusal to make payments from the Government of Ghana budget.
The Ghana Medical Association (GMA) was one of the other parties involved, he claimed, and he had the chance to confirm with them that the same point was made.
The Minister stated that, in addition to announcing this on the floor of the House, the Ghanaian government had given a large sum of money to the Zipline.
Mr Akandoh stated that their services were to focus on hard-to-reach areas and emergency services, but after reviewing their activities, it was discovered that hard-to-reach areas constituted only 12% of their activities, with emergency services accounting for 4%.
He noted that it was fascinating to notice that some of the products they flew were condoms, blood donation cards (not blood), mosquito nets, food and nutrition supplies, sticky tapes, syringes and needles, and educational resources such as textbooks, workbooks, and uniforms.
“So, these are some of the items they have been flying. And so when we came to office, we think that there must be value for money. And therefore we are engaging them. So if you hear that we are not engaging Zipline, it’s not true. We have met more than three times, and we are still engaging them to know how we can have value for money.”
According to Mr. Akandoh, the President gave them instructions to carry out these tasks, stating, “That in our respective ministries, we must make sure that whatever we are doing, we have value for money.”
Source: newsthemegh.com