The Chairmann of the Jospong Group of Companies, Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong has denied allegations that a $74 million waste management contract he had with government had been terminated for failure to deliver.
The reports said in two years ago, five of Jospong’s 80 companies were contracted to supply one million waste bins and 900,000 waste bags to District Assemblies at the said cost, but till date, they had failed to supply so the contract has been terminated.
But Dr. Agyepong told journalists the two-year contract elapsed by itself because government did not have money to pay, so it was never a case of Jospong’s failure to deliver.
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“It was a simple matter of government not having money to finance the contract so the contract naturally elapsed – a contract which has elapsed cannot be terminated as being speculated,” he said.
On the issue of Jospong supplying bins that were left to waste away in the various District Assemblies, Dr. Agyepong said the announcemenr of the elapsed contract clearly shows that Jospong never supplied any bins as reported.
“Those media reports were pure mischief and the recent announcement vindicates us,” he said.
He also explained that speculations about the contract sum being too high, was also a matter of the quality of bins expected to be supplied.
The reports said the bins were costed as $60 for one and that was too high, but Dr. Agyepong said “you can even get a bin for $20 but all that depends on the virgin material used in manufacturing the bins – if the virgin material is cheap the bins will spoil in no time, but we use quality virgin material to manufacture our bins,” he said.
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Dr. Agyepong said because government did not have money to fund the contract, Jospong managed to get a $10 million facility from Ecobank to acquire over 500,000 waste bins to be distributed to home beginning this year.
Additionally, the company has secured various private funds across the world to build compost plants in parts of the country and and also processing plant in all districts.
He said the company is committed to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s vision to make Accra the cleanest city in Africa, and he believes that can be achieved “when we see waste as a resource instead of nuisance.”
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Dr. Agyepong said Zoomlion, its sister companies and partners in the waste management industry are committed to deliver on the full cycle of waste management, and not just collection and dumping.
He is therefore encouraging all Ghanaians to rally around Zoomlion and other industry players to ensure that the country derives full benefits from the waste generated on daily basis.