Ghana has always made bold statements and tried out novel policy initiatives in its pursuit of sustainable development.
However, Bright Simons, the Honorary Vice President of the IMANI Centre for Policy and Education, breaks through the clutter with a sharp reminder: the nation is mired in a system he refers to as “Katanomics,” in which politics and policy are totally separated and where glitzy projects stand in for quantifiable national advancement.
In an in-depth analysis, Bright Simons presented a depressing image of a country that consistently fails to grow from its policy errors.
He challenged his countrymen to name a significant industry, such as energy, transportation, education, or health, where lasting advancements have resulted from obvious lessons learned from previous policy failures.
“If you can’t point to an area and describe how the nation learnt from previous policy mistakes and which new methods were applied to cause which improvement, then you must agree with me.”
Simon’s argument is a biting critique of Ghana’s political culture, which prioritises appearances over results. The main cause of Ghana’s developmental stagnation, according to Bright Simons, is this absence of “national learning.“
He said that a thriving policy community, comprising think tanks, civil society organisations, academics, the media, and engaged citizens, closely examines government policy decisions in many developed democracies and holds leaders responsible for both their achievements and shortcomings.
But this link is mainly missing in Ghana, according to Bright Simons, who lamented that political actors frequently take shortcuts or spend recklessly to produce what “looks like results,” regardless of long-term sustainability.
Bright Simons offered a damning case study to illustrate this malaise: government’s partnership with Zipline, a U.S.-based drone delivery company that began operations in Ghana in 2018.
“The justification for this program was that there are clinics in places with such bad roads that this was either the only way or the best way to get products to them.”
Originally pitched as an innovative solution to medicine delivery in hard-to-reach areas, the Zipline project has morphed into what Bright Simons sees as an emblem of Ghana’s policy dysfunction.
He explained that when the project was introduced, think tanks like IMANI raised red flags about its viability and sustainability.
The technology, while novel, was proposed as a blanket solution to systemic challenges in Ghana’s broken medicine distribution network — issues which had more to do with underfunding, logistical bottlenecks, and poor planning than with road accessibility.
According to Bright Simons, despite these warnings, the previous government pushed ahead with a large-scale rollout, establishing multiple drone depots and signing a lucrative contract with Zipline.
Simons claimed that, incredibly, Ghana even relinquished all rights to the emergent intellectual property, allowing the company to raise hundreds of millions in capital off the back of a contract with a state that would later struggle to pay its bills.
“Due to the standard poor planning, it didn’t take long before the millions of dollars in unpaid bills to Zipline started to mount. The Ministry of Health had never incorporated drone delivery into any of its medium-term policy strategies.
“It hadn’t budgeted for them properly. Clinic staff started to overuse the system. Instead of emergency deliveries, routine products costing a few cents per box were being catapulted by drones in small quantities.”
Yet, despite these obvious failures, Bright Simons decried that little to no public evaluation or official policy reckoning has occurred, asserting that the opacity surrounding the costs, terms of contract, and true impact of Zipline remains thick.
According to him, the few assessments conducted were commissioned by Zipline itself and failed to offer a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis, adding that no lessons have been learnt while no adjustments have been made to reflect the glaring gaps in implementation and oversight.
The most shocking to Bright Simons is that despite a change in government, no attempt has been made to evaluate the entire project, but rather the new Minister of Communications and Digital Innovation recently proposed that Zipline drones begin delivering pesticides and fertilisers to farmers.
Expressing bewilderment, he questioned how the economics of delivering lightweight, high-value items like medicines don’t add up, how the drone delivery of low-value, high-weight goods like fertilisers makes any fiscal or logistical sense.
“Given that the new government, when it was in opposition in 2018, was very critical of the Zipline program, one can be forgiven for thinking that some transparency would be forthcoming.
KATANOMICS is not a problem with one party or the other –
“It describes the policy-politics dysfunction in Ghana, regardless of who is in government. Thus, even though the current government is better at consulting and more open to feedback, the fundamental issues remain.”
The central issue, Bright Simons insisted, is not whether drones can or cannot be used for agriculture, but rather whether the decision is grounded in rigorous policy assessment.
Once again, Bright Simons believes there is no evidence that any such analysis preceded the minister’s off-the-cuff announcement.
“Until policy begins to have high-stakes political implications because there is a policy community large enough to make politicians think twice before they launch programs, they will keep going for shiny trophies that LOOK LIKE RESULTS. Pseudo-results that would be politically rewarded.”
He warned that Ghana risks entrenching a cycle where citizens are billed for costly and ineffective policies, while politicians reap the political benefits of pseudo-results.
Without a radical shift towards a culture of national learning, transparency, and accountability, the country may continue to spend lavishly on projects that deliver little value.
To get past this, Ghana must develop a strong policy ecosystem that is sizable, audible, and reliable enough to influence political decisions.
As Bright Simons correctly pointed out, politicians will continue to view national development as a theatre of gimmicks as long as policy has no political cost.
Likewise, there won’t be any motivation to create effective policies if no one is held accountable for policy failures.
In his reflection, Bright Simons is not just criticising the Zipline program or the officials who supported it, but rather urging a national awakening and a change in Ghana’s policy-making culture.
He is also demanding a future where public policy is not just a game of optics and slogans, but a serious process of study, experimentation, reflection, and accountability.
Until Ghana embraces this ethos of national learning, it will continue to pay for expensive failures, while celebrating hollow victories.