Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Youth Employment Authority (YEA), Malik Basintale has pledged to ensure sweepers of Zoomlion receive better wages.
He expressed disdain over the fact that Zoomlion sweepers were being paid a meagre Ghc250 as monthly salary.
According to Malik Basintale, it is both sad and disrespectful to pay Zoomlion sweepers, key persons in ensuring sanitation in the country poorly.
“If my mother/Brother/Sister were a Zoomlion worker, I won’t be happy with either of them taking Ghc250 as Salary and as such I can’t be happy with you, your mother, father, brother or sister taking same.”
In a facebook post, he wrote, “All my life, I have fought for integrity and for the better placement of the Youth and people of Ghana. For 7years, 9 months, the NPP renewed the Zoomlion contract in its current state paying the Ghanaian Youth/worker Ghc250.H.E John Dramani Mahama came to review, reset and bring Ghana back on track. This includes ensuring that every worker is paid satisfactorily for the work done.”
Malik’s post comes days after journalist, Manasseh Azuri appealed to him against renewing a contract between Zoomlion and the YEA (since 2006), which states that Zoomlion should manage the cleaners and sweepers of all the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) in Ghana. The contract says the YEA and the MMDAs should employ the cleaners and give them to Zoomlion to manage.
“I write to appeal to you on behalf of the youth of Ghana, not to sign a new contract with Zoomlion. I’m referring to the contract that allocates 850 cedis per month to the sweepers, but stipulates that 600 should go to Zoomlion while the sweepers go home with 250 cedis a month. Don’t resurrect that deal, please.”
According to Manasseh Azuri, per the last contract, Zoomlion is paid Ghc850 per cleaner, but the contract says Zoomlion should pay each cleaner Ghc250 and keep 600 cedis as fees.
“The cleaners have no benefits such as transportation, health insurance or retirement package. If they fall ill battling the filth in our gutters and markets, they’re on their own. That’s not all the woes these miserable cleaners go through. A letter I intercepted in 2024 showed that Zoomlion has not paid these cleaners for more than one year, even though the company claims the high fees and interest it charges the government are because it pre-finances the payment before the government pays later.”
According to him, because of the low monthly salary of Ghc250 and the fact that it is not always paid, most cleaners do not go to work.
The journalist questioned the logic behind the payment of Ghc600 to the supervisor (Zoomlion) of a sweeper paid Ghc250 a monthly, and amount less than the minimum wage.
Aside from underpaying the sweepers, Manasseh also revealed that Zoomlion is also robbing the state blind by presenting an over bloated claim of employing 45,000 sweepers nationwide.
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