Manasseh Azure Awuni an award-winning investigative journalist has said, that Greater Accra Minister Linda Ocloo partnering with Zoomlion is courting corruption, not a solution.
According to Manasseh Azure Awuni, partnering with Zoomlion to solve the sanitation problem in Ghana is like partnering with a convicted paedophile to undertake a campaign against child sex abuse.
The investigative journalist revealed that a former Sanitation minister Joseph Kofi Adda told Ghanaians to blame Zoomlion Ghana Limited for the filth that had engulfed the country.
Manasseh Azure Awuni revealed he was shocked when Linda Ocloo met the CEO of Zoomlion and Chairman of the Jospong Group of Companies, Joseph Siaw Agyepong to collaborate on keeping Accra clean.
He revealed that 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.
In a long write-up on social media X, Manasseh Azure detailed, “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”, he wrote.
Manasseh Azure added that Zoomlion and the Jospong Group have been involved in many corruption scandals in Ghana and abroad.
He wrote, “ 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 “acknowledgement 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.”
The investigative Journalist suggest that if Linda Ocloo wants to see Accra clean she should allow the assemblies to control the people who clean their markets and streets.
He added that assemblies’ sanitation and waste management departments are better equipped with personnel than Zoomlion’s district offices.
Manasseh asserted that what the assemblies lack is the funds which the government gives to Zoomlion.
See his post below:
LINDA OCLOO IS COURTING CORRUPTION, NOT SOLUTION
************************************************************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… pic.twitter.com/Ssn5NXI0a5
— Manasseh Azure Awuni (@Manasseh_Azure) February 5, 2025
