The contractual viability of the Zipline Ghana drone delivery service has come under scrutiny after Health Minister Kwabena Mintah Akandoh revealed data showing the service operates almost entirely outside its core mandate of emergency and hard-to-reach medical supply.
Speaking at the Government Accountability Series on Monday, December 1, 2025, Mr Akandoh presented figures indicating that a chunk of Zipline’s activity is not strictly emergency-related, raising severe questions about the GH¢174 million currently owed to the company and the overall value for public funds.
The minister emphasised that the primary contractual obligation of the drone service—initially heralded as a revolutionary logistics solution—was to focus on time-critical medical supplies in the most challenging locations.
However, the official government review indicates that the service has drastically drifted from this mission:
“The services were to concentrate on hard-to-reach areas and emergency services, but upon review of the activities, the hard-to-reach areas constitute only 12% of their activities, and emergency services constitute only 4% of their activities,” he said.
This means that a mere 16% of flights are dedicated to the high-priority, life-saving missions that justified the contract’s substantial cost. The remaining 84% of operational activity is dedicated to delivering non-emergency, non-critical items.
Mr Akandoh detailed the shocking inventory of items being transported by the advanced, high-cost aerial platform, arguing that standard couriers could handle the logistics far more cheaply.
“It will interest you to know some of the items they fly. Items like condoms, blood-donor cards, mosquito nets, food and nutrition items, adhesive tapes, syringes and needles, education materials like textbooks and uniforms, among other things.”
The delivery of items like school uniforms, textbooks, and donor cards by a service contracted for medical emergencies underscores the inefficiency, given the high operational costs associated with drone technology.
The Minister’s revelations arrive amidst a severe financial dispute, which has already impacted Zipline’s operational footprint:
- Debt & Closures: Zipline has reportedly closed three of its operational centres due to the GH¢174 million in outstanding arrears owed by the government.
- Engagement for Value: The government is now initiating stringent discussions to renegotiate the service terms and recover value for the taxpayer. Mr. Akandoh confirmed the focus:
“We think that there must be value for money, therefore we are engaging them,” he said.
This mounting evidence of non-compliance and budgetary strain has fuelled aggressive calls for termination.
Majority Leader Mahama Ayariga has been a vocal critic, describing the entire drone delivery scheme as a “mismanagement of public funds” that has utterly “failed to provide value for money.”
The government faces pressure to either re-engineer the Zipline contract to strictly enforce its mandate or terminate the agreement entirely.
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