Dear Linda Ocloo,
The Minority Leader of Parliament, Alexander Afenyo Markin, is widely quoted in media reports as saying that the Appointments Committee of Parliament did not ask you any questions at your vetting because the committee was begged on your behalf. The reason for the begging was that you could not stand scrutiny, so the committee gave you a pass, and Parliament subsequently approved your nomination as the Minister for the Greater Accra Region.
That is senseless and shameful by Parliament. A person who wants to preside over an important public office should be withdrawn immediately if he or she cannot stand scrutiny or accountability. But knowing what I know of our Parliament, this news did not shock me.
What shocked me was that one of your first moves after being sworn into office was to meet the CEO of Zoomlion and Chairman of the Jospong Group of Companies, Joseph Siaw Agyepong, to collaborate on keeping Accra clean.
Linda Ocloo, if you have some modicum of conscience—and I suppose you do—you would rescind your decision on Jospong and Zoomlion by just reading the comments people shared on the Facebook post about your meeting with Siaw Agyepong. From those comments, even the BuzStopBoys who don’t have any contract with the government, are doing better than Zoomlion.
Linda Ocloo, our elders say the herbalist who adds pepper to a soothing balm is definitely not seeking a cure. With your misstep, you are courting corruption, not a solution, to the waste management problem in Ghana’s capital. The reason Ghana is this dirty and politicians do not seem to find the solution is because of the corrupt and unconscionable monopoly contracts they have signed with Zoomlion/Jospong. Here are some hardcore facts to back my statement:
1. Zoomlion and the Jospong Group have been involved in many corruption scandals in Ghana and abroad. In 2013, when my GYEEDA investigation revealed Zoomlion’s culpability in multiple corruption deals at the YEA, the World Bank also exposed Zoomlion in a corruption scandal in Liberia. The World Bank announced a ban on the company following Zoomlion’s “acknowledgment of misconduct impacting the World Bank-financed Emergency Monrovia Urban Sanitation Project in Liberia. The company paid bribes to facilitate contract execution and processing of invoices.”
2. In Ghana, politicians and presidents continue to deal with Zoomlion as a monopoly in the sanitation sector sanitation, claiming falsely that the other companies lack the capacity and resources to do the work. For the information of all who fall for this lie, Zoomlion was handed multiple nationwide sanitation contracts in 2006 by the government when the company did not have waste management trucks. Zoomlion started with cheap man-powered tricycles. A CHRAJ investigation revealed that in the 2007 contract with all assemblies in Ghana, Zoomlion received payments long before it supplied the trucks to do the work. In Part 3 of my “Robbing the Assemblies” investigative documentary series, there is enormous evidence that some assemblies and private waste management companies did better than Zoomlion in waste management. (Robbing the Assemblies Part 3 is on YouTube).
3. In March 2018, the Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Joseph Kofi Adda, said Ghanaians should blame Zoomlion Ghana Limited for the filth that had engulfed the country. Not long after that, there was a strong media campaign against the minister, leading to his removal from that ministry. President Akufo-Addo replaced Kofi Adda with Cecelia Abena Dapaah, who praised Zoomlion highly. (Cecelia Abena Dapaah left office after heavy cash was discovered in her room without fulfilling her pledge to make Accra the cleanest capital city in Africa).
4. If anybody doubted Kofi Adda’s assessment that Zoomlion is responsible for the filth in Ghana, here is the evidence:
a. The metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies in Ghana used to be effective in enforcing sanitation bylaws. They used sanitary inspectors, popularly known as the “nsamansama” people. The government stopped that initiative and awarded the contract to Zoomlion under the Sanitation Guards programme.
b. Assemblies used to employ and supervise sweepers to clean markets and public places. Since 2006, the government has forced the assemblies to abandon that. The government uses the Assemblies Common Fund to pay Zoomlion to manage the sweepers under the YEA programme. In simple terms, Zoomlion is responsible for sweeping markets from Axim to Paga. In this contract, the government pays Zoomlion 850 cedis per sweeper monthly, but the contract says Zoomlion should take 600 cedis and pay the sweepers only 250 cedis a month. Sometimes, the sweepers are owed for up to one year even though Zoomlion claims to be pre-financing the programme, for which it charges the government.
c. When the sweepers finish cleaning the market and public places, Zoomlion has contracts with all the assemblies in Ghana to dump the waste collected by the sweepers at the final disposal site. That contract is called the Sanitation Improvement Package (SIP). So, the 600 cedis it takes per sweeper does not include disposing off the refuse collected.
d. Zoomlion, per my “Robbing the Assemblies” investigation, has contracts to manage the final disposal sites.
e. Zoomlion has a standing contract with the assemblies to undertake fumigation in all the assemblies. Auditor-General’s reports often indicate that the work is not done in many places, but the company is paid in Accra from the assemblies’ share of the Common Fund.
f. Zoomlion was awarded a standing contract in 2009 for another fumigation at the assemblies. This contract was awarded by the Ministry of Health and payment is made in Accra through the National Health Insurance Scheme.
g. Zoomlion and the Jospong Group also have a third fumigation contract awarded annually by the Ministry of Local Government. It was expanded during COVID-19.
h. Zoomlion and the Jospong Group have other nationwide contracts to process waste and manage solid wastes.
5. So, if one company has been in charge of all these government contracts and makes billions from them, who should we blame if Accra and Ghana are still filthy? What new thing are you, Linda Ocloo, expecting from Zoomlion?
6. In September 2022, the AMA CEO wanted the list of the cleaners working in her metropolis, based on which money is deducted from her Common Fund at source and paid to Zoomlion. She wrote a letter to the Youth Employment Authority. (Letter in the comment section of this post).
7. The YEA, which signed the contract with Zoomlion and is supposed to recruit the cleaners for Zoomlion, told the AMA CEO that it did not know the number of cleaners being managed by Zoomlion, but it continued to pay Zoomlion based on the number Zoomlion presents. How do I know this?
8. The October 13, 2022 board minutes of the YEA captures the frustration of the YEA CEO, Kofi Baah Agyepong, who wanted the contract with Zoomlion terminated. In the board minutes, the YEA CEO is quoted as confessing that the YEA could not respond to the AMA CEO because the YEA did not know the people who were supposed to be working in the AMA area.
9. The board minutes said:
“The CEO further stated that management does not have the data to authenticate any claims from the service provider [Zoomlion], including the number of beneficiaries at post and working. Hence, when the Accra Metropolitan Assembly requested information on beneficiaries working in the metropolis, management could not provide them with the same. The CEO mentioned that this occasioned a meeting with the regional minister, who raised further issues with the quality of work done in Accra city and its environs. The CEO stated that management has the capacity to manage the sanitation [module] if given the opportunity.”
Linda Ocloo, in “The Fourth John: Reign, Rejection & Rebound,” I said that whenever Zoomlion is involved, politicians and government officials act without consulting their brains. I hope that John Mahama has learnt some lessons and that you will help him to do what is right this time. I also hope that, unlike others, you will consult your brains if you really want to find a solution to Accra’s filth.
Relying on Zoomlion to solve the sanitation problem in Ghana is like partnering with a convicted pedophile to undertake a campaign against child sex abuse.
If you want to see Accra clean, allow the assemblies to control the people who clean their markets and streets. Their money is used to pay the cleaners, so they should have control. The assemblies’ sanitation and waste management departments are better equipped with personnel than Zoomlion’s district offices. What they lack is their funds, which the government gives to Zoomlion.
Because almost all the money goes to Zoomlion, the sweepers are not motivated to go out and clean the cities. In the last Parliament, Haruna Iddrisu and Dr. Kwabena Donkor raised the issue of Zoomlion’s slave wages to the sweepers. Speaker Bagbin constituted a committee to investigate this when Dr. Kwabena Donkor first raised this. As with Zoomlion investigations, nothing came out of it.
By partnering with Zoomlio, you are courting corruption, not a solution.
Yours sincerely,
Manasseh Azure Awuni.
1. President John Dramani Mahama
2. Vice President Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang
3. Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah
4. Executive Secretary to the President, Dr. Callistus Mahama
5. Minister of Justice and Attorney-General, Dr. Dominic Ayine
6. Malik Basintale, CEO of the YEA
7. Ahmed Ibrahim, Minister of Local Government
8. All Men and Women of Conscience in the Mahama administration
