Let’s have a media coalition for transforming waste to wealth - Jospong Boss

Dr Joseph Siaw Agyepong, Executive Chairman of the Jospong Group of Companies, has urged the media to partner waste management companies to wage a campaign that would see Ghana sustainably clean, while transforming waste to wealth.

This endeavour, he said, would lead to the fulfilment of the President’s rallying call to Ghanaians to join efforts to make Accra the cleanest city in Africa by the end of his first term.

Addressing senior journalists at a soiree, in Accra, Dr Agyepong said processing both liquid and solid waste, which should be seen as natural resources, into diverse products would create jobs and increase the forex earnings from tourist influx.

“Let us see waste as a new natural resource that has been discovered,” he emphasised. “If we are able to harness the potential it presents, it can turn the fortunes of this country to glory,” he quoted from a study conducted by the Company.

Dr Agyepong commended the media for successfully prosecuting the “Stop Galamsey” agenda, saying the same energies, commitments and passion should be deployed to redeem the nation from filth and the related communicable diseases.

“I believe strongly that the problem of the waste is not only about the waste managers cleaning everywhere, but more to do with the poor attitude of the citizenry towards waste disposal and management,” he said

Reaffirming his confidence in the ability of the Ghanaian to solve his own problems, the Executive Director said Zoomlion had, consequently, secured a loan facility from Ecobank towards facilitating the clean Ghana for wealth agenda.

With the facility one million household bins would be distributed to households through the district assemblies.

The project would ensure the safe and secure collection of waste, its disposal, sorting and processing in the waste management value chain, he said, and called for the media’s strong support.

Per the agreement with the assemblies, he explained that two per cent of the revenue generated would be given to them.

“The assemblies’ role is to ensure that the households get the bin; the bye-laws are enforced to the letter; and the fees for waste collection are paid. There will be an electronic platform for payment and the various apportionment would be sent to the respective stakeholders”.

With funding support from private investors in Hungary and Austria, he said, said the Company would build a waste recycling plant in every region.

Already, he said, “Zoomlion runs the Accra Compost and Recycling Plant, the country’s largest compost producing facility that adopts the natural biodegradation based process, which makes use of organic waste to produce nutrient-rich compost for agriculture sector as well as for horticultural ventures.

“It is one of the excellent methods of waste disposal where it can transform safe organic items into safe compost. The Kumasi Compost Plant is also near completion. Efforts are currently being made to replicate the innovation in all the regions using the Mobile Compost technology”.

Dr Agyepong said Jospong, in line with the one-district-one-factory, had established the Universal Plastic Products and Recycling Plant and YEECO Plastics, which were processing sachet plastics into waste bins and their liners, both in Accra and Kumbungu in the Northern Region.

On liquid waste, he said the Company had stopped the 100 year-long story of the Lavender Hills, in Accra, with a state-of-the-art facility for liquid waste management and the generation of bio gas for power generation.

The Company, he said, would continue to intensify its research activities to develop innovative technologies to complement the government’s quest to ensure cleanliness.

The Jospong Group of Companies, with Zoomlion, which was established 13 years ago, has evolved into a multi-pronged organisation providing services in insurance, finance, hospitality, event management, academia and professional development, among others. Zoomlion alone employs 85,000 people nationwide.

Jospong operates in Angola, Togo Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Zambia.