Bawumia’s claims about E-Pharmacy false

He said that the platform was established by the Pharmacy Council and other state institutions to enable 30 million Ghanaians to easily access medicines in any part of the country. He also said that this is the first national-scale EPharmacy in Africa.

Finally, he mentioned that the National EPharmacy Platform is connected to the FDA so that people can check each medicine they buy if it is safe and approved.

We have been factchecking all these claims and investigating the background of the entire project. We can confirm to Ghanaians that Dr. Bawumia’s claims are FALSE.

Is NEEP the first in Africa?

South Africa has the SIAPS (based on RxSolution) and iDART platforms which offer electronic pharmacy and dispensing solutions also on a nationwide scale. The system is developed by Cell-Life and is free.

Botswana has the “Doctors E-Consult” platform which also offers electronic pharmacy services nationwide.

Egypt has the Yodawy Platform.
Namibia also worked with USAID to create the FESC EDT and is expanding nationally.

Uganda has added EPharmacy service to Stre@mline Platform for national- scale.

Was NEEP built by the Pharmacy Council?

Dr. Bawumia stated during the launch of the National EPharmacy platform that it is a brand new system built by the Pharmacy Council because he challenged them to do it during an event.

My investigations have shown that this is FALSE. The platform was already existing as Healthker.

It was built by a company called Rx Health Infosystems. The Founders of the company are also the local reps of the Zipline medical drone service that Ghana pays $12.5 million a year for.

Healthker was first launched in 2020 but it did not get enough users. Currently only 500 users are on the service on Google Android.

Dr. Bawumia’s office worked with Healthker to rebrand the app as the National EPharmacy even though it has failed to attract users.

This is similar to how AsaaseGPS which uses Google’s free mapping tool was rebranded to GhanaPostGPS and the government paid $2.5 million for it.

My contacts at the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana says that the Vice President’s office rushed to launch the platform after the EPharmacy Committee clearly told the government that there are a lot of companies also offering electronic medical services such as Lightwave and HAMS and even working with government already.

The committee made things clear to the Veep’s office and Rx Health Info Systems that the government cannot just take a private company’s platform and rebrand as a national system for every pharmacy when many of the pharmacies have their own apps in place.

Based on my investigations we can boldly say that the claims of Vice President Bawumia are FALSE.

Stephen Yankey is a Member of Journalist for Truth Ghana