Manasseh Azure Awuni, Investigative Journalist
If Manasseh is asking why Ghana/ Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) authorities visited Rwanda understudy their progress in sanitation in spite of Zoomlion’s assurance that it has solutions for our sanitation problems, after all the sanitation contracts that have been given to Zoomlion for the past 15 years, he should take note that yes Ghana and for that Zoomlion has all the solutions to our waste management problems except that characters and attitudes of your nature has badly hindered our progress in that effort over the fifteen years.
Ghana at the moment does not lack waste management infrastructure, rather what we lack is discipline, a positive attitude and the lack of political will to enforce existing laws to curb the sanitation problems.
People like Manasseh who throw such questions should provide answers and reasons why they have never urged Ghanaians to live positive lives with regard to managing their own waste but rather stand in antagonism against all efforts made by forward thinkers like Zoomlion Ghana Limited to address our sanitation problems?
Manasseh, is it not true that when Ghana was busy advocating cleanup exercises in the first term of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo you categorically said you will not participate because you pay taxes? Is it untrue that Zoomlion constructed and owns the Accra Sewerage Systems Limited which has solved the direct liquid waste dislodgement into the sea that earned Ghana the bad name of being the seventh dirtiest country in the whole world in 2007?
In fifteen years is it not Zoomlion that has established the Accra Compost and Recycling Plant (ACARP) who receives and manages most of the waste from East and North Accra at Adjen Kotoku? Is it not this same Zoomlion you so hate to the bone that for reasons of reducing travel time and road traffic constructed the Achimota and Teshie Waste Transfer Stations?
Has Manasseh been following current trends that Zoomlion has built the biggest waste compost and recycling plant of Africa in Kumasi and it's currently fully operational since last year? Has he abreast himself with the fact that a waste water treatment plant is completed also constructed by Zoomlion and four separate engineered landfills in Kumasi and about to be commissioned?
What about those in Takoradi, Tema and Tamale ongoing? Do you want to denigrate the hard-working image of Zoomlion who has constructed the IRECOP project at Old Fadama in Accra that receives and processes some 400 tons of waste in a day in Accra and started same in earnest in Bono, Ahafo, Savannah, Oti, Volta, Northern, Western North and Western among others? Can somebody ask Manasseh whether he knows the plastic waste collected in Ghana is being used by Zoomlion to produce waste bins, tables, chairs and other utensils in Ghana here at the subsidiary called Universal Plastic Waste Product Company Limited (UPPRCL?
I am sure that Manasseh is aware of all these but you will choose evil over good and continue to drag the company’s name into the mud but let me refer you the this: If the child says the mother will not sleep then expect no sleep from that child for one good turn deserves another says he old.
Manasseh is also not oblivious of the fact that the Supreme Court of Ghana in a seven-member panel led by His Lordship Justice Jones Dotse on December 3, 2020, ruled that the Auditor General had no such powers to surcharge and disallow money amounting to over 184 MILLION GHANA CEDIS paid to Zoomlion by government as a result of fumigation contract it undertook. It said, “Zoomlion is not liable to the powers of the Auditor-General”. In a similar matter, the High Court presided by Her Ladyship Justice Georgina Mensah-Datsa on January 31 had also said the Auditor General did not establish any fraud against Zoomlion in the discharge of its contractual duties and receiving payment for same. “Her ladyship found no evidence of fraud and so held”. So what is this deliberate fascination by Manasseh about Zoomlion’s contracts with government being fraudulent?
Manasseh’s actions are shredded with malice, wickedness, vindictiveness, hypocrisy, greediness, self-centeredness and not in service for the people of Ghana.
Ghana has chalked enviable progress in the world as far as waste management is concerned through the singular efforts of the company Zoomlion Ghana Limited owned by the man Manasseh hates so much the veritable Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong and so therefore if government/AMA is in Rwanda, they are there to understudy the discipline and law enforcement prowess in environmental sanitation controls and not the how waste is managed. Indeed, several countries have visited Ghana in the recent past to understudy how we manage waste through Zoomlion which you wrote nothing about so stop the hate. If it is breaking the monopoly that you seek, you have no problem because Zoomlion is not the only company that is into waste management business with government.
Some of the private companies in this industry in Ghana who have been dealing with government are; J. Stanley Owusu Co. Ltd, Y.N.O Enterprise Ltd, Zoompak Ltd, Zesta Environmental Solutions Ltd and Erksarp Ventures. The rest are Apedum Waste Services Ltd, Bioland Ltd, Keen 2 Clean Services Ltd, New Era Waste Concept, Golden Falcom Ltd, Early Sunrise Trading Co. Ltd, Asadu Royal Seed Waste Management, Premko Waste Ltd, Jenkorah Enterprise, Adehyeman Waste Limited, Waste Masters Limited, Eastern Waste Ltd, Meridian Waste Management Services, Welaga Ventures Ltd, Jam Waste Management Company, Habana Waste Management Services and Home Refuse Collection Enterprise and so on.
I pray Zoomlion sues you for deliberately denting the image and calling it fraudulent in spite of the court rulings stated earlier.
Fifteen years on, you have pulled hard to no avail to ensure that you break the Zoomlion brand down but you should know that it is God who makes people. The God that made Jospong is keeping close with him to ensure that he accomplishes his mission of improving people’s lives and their environment and no weapon fashioned against him will prosper.
Have you asked yourself why Jospong is the choice of every president? He provides the most suitable and practicable solutions to our problems through research. You can keep trying upon vanity, Ghanaians know that you have now outlived your usefulness and only God can save you from the shame that has engulfed you due to this conspicuous and childish hatred.