Two months after the BBC aired a documentary exposing the influx of dangerous opioids into West African countries including Ghana, local policy analyst Bright Simons is raising an alarm over what he describes as a crisis unfolding in plain sight.
In a detailed analysis, Simons, Vice President of IMANI Africa, argues that the opioid trade in Ghana is not being driven by smuggling operations in the shadows but by a well-oiled system of formal imports, licensed clearances, and structured retail, some of it allegedly involving reputable companies and state institutions.
According to Simons, companies like Aveo and its affiliate Westfin, both mentioned in the BBC exposé, were registered as legitimate business partners of Samospharma, a Ghanaian firm that operates the award-winning online pharmacy platform, DrugNet. The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) publicly confirmed this link, only for Samospharma to furiously deny any association and threaten legal action against both the FDA and the BBC.
Simons observes that Ghana’s culture of hyper-politicised discourse often deflects from true policy accountability. He describes this phenomenon as “katanomics,” where vibrant democratic expression masks a systemic failure to enforce policy effectively. The result, he argues, is a culture of “performative governance”, in which public officials respond to crises with spectacles rather than substantive action.
Citing recent examples, Simons notes that government agencies resorted to public bonfires to destroy seized opioids, while offering little information on how these banned or unregistered drugs entered Ghana through formal trade routes.
Despite calls for accountability, Simons says no arrests or clear explanations have been provided regarding how dangerous drugs, some of them banned globally, were cleared at the port, distributed, and sold on the open market. “No one has been held accountable along the chain of importation, clearance, surveillance, distribution, or sale,” he stated.
Simons and his civil society collaborators used data analytics and AI tools to map what he refers to as an “ego network” of companies, individuals, and regulators connected to the opioid trade. Their findings, according to him, are alarming.
Among the revelations:
- Over 200 million units of opioids may have entered Ghana within a short time frame.
- Some software companies have been listed as importers of pharmaceutical products from Aveo, the firm at the center of the BBC investigation.
- Dangerous drugs like tafrodol, which contain the banned ingredient tapentadol, were found on Ghanaian e-commerce sites earlier this year, despite FDA assurances that such drugs are not licensed in the country.
- Products were often mislabelled as originating from South Africa or Egypt, even when shipping records traced them back to manufacturers in India.
Simons also points to reputable clearing agents, including Duncan International and Hans Shipping Services, who reportedly facilitated the port clearance of these products. These companies, known in Ghana’s shipping industry for decades, cleared products that appear to contradict official importation claims.
In one notable instance, the FDA linked Aveo to prolatan eye-drops, even though Samospharma insisted it had registered a different Indian manufacturer, Sudarshan. Shipping records obtained by Simons’ team showed that Duncan International cleared the controversial consignment, while other shipments were handled by Hans Shipping Services.
Simons further alleges that Nigerian traffickers are using Ghanaian ports as a conduit for banned opioids, with the complicity, or negligence, of local regulators. “Even consignment origination cannot be accurately established,” he warned.
The broader implication, according to Simons, is that Ghana’s regulatory systems are too compromised to uncover the truth behind similar crises, like the recent scandal involving allegations of cocaine being smuggled in medical ambulances.
“Purely open and transparent transactions in a highly regulated industry like pharmaceuticals can nonetheless mask such sinister dealings,” Simons said. “If that’s possible, what hope do we have that truly clandestine criminal activity like cocaine trafficking can be unraveled?”
For now, he says, Ghanaians may have to settle for “entertaining claims” and media drama, rather than real accountability.
Read full article here: https://brightsimons.com/2025/04/what-the-opioids-boom-in-ghana-says-about-the-cocaine-circus/
