”Bring your own trucks” – Minister challenges Zoomlion critics; Awuni hits back with damning expose’ on waste giants beginnings

A fresh debate over the dominance of Zoomlion in Ghana’s waste management sector has erupted following a quote card shared by Metro TV. In the widely circulated graphic, the Minister for Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, Ahmed Ibrahim, issued a stark challenge to critics of the company.

“Any group opposed to Zoomlion private partnerships should come forward with the equipment and logistics required to handle waste,” the minister was quoted as saying, implying that only existing capacity qualifies a company to participate in the country’s sanitation efforts.

However, the minister’s assertion has been met with a blistering rebuttal from investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni, who described the statement as either a display of “ignorance, dishonesty, or both.” Mr. Awuni argued that the minister’s logic contradicts the historical facts of how Zoomlion built its empire, pointing instead to a system of preferential contracts and favorable funding.

The 2006 Contracts and 2008 SSNIT Memo
Central to Mr. Awuni’s counter-argument is a 2008 Memorandum of Understanding involving the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT). According to the document, Zoomlion sought to borrow $15 million from Stanbic Bank to acquire vehicles. At that time, the company had already secured waste management contracts with all 135 metropolitan, municipal, and district assemblies (MMDAs)—yet it did not own a single truck to fulfill those obligations.

Mr. Awuni contends that Zoomlion had to leverage these already-signed contracts as collateral to secure the loan. This timeline, he insists, proves that the company was granted a sweeping national monopoly in 2006, long before it built its operational capacity.

“If Others Had the Monopoly…”
The journalist emphasized that the current competitive landscape is not a matter of merit or logistics but one of exclusive patronage. He pointed out that had other legitimate waste management firms—such as J. Stanley Owusu—been given the same monopoly and systemic advantages enjoyed by Zoomlion, they too would have scaled up their operations to match the demand.

Sanitation Levy and the Assemblies’ Common Fund
Mr. Awuni further challenged the Minister’s claims by spotlighting government financing. He alleged that during the previous administration, the government imposed a sanitation and pollution levy which disbursed a staggering 1.5 billion Ghana Cedis. According to Mr. Awuni, all of that money was diverted to Zoomlion and the Jospong Group.

Critically, he noted that the district assemblies already possess the human resources to handle their own refuse collection but remain entirely deprived of the requisite equipment. Instead of using the Assemblies’ Common Fund to purchase refuse trucks for these local authorities to manage their own waste independently, Mr. Awuni claimed the government awarded contracts to Zoomlion’s sister company to supply construction equipment—further consolidating the conglomerate’s control over the sector.

“Any entity that receives the kind of shady contracts and free money that Zoomlion gets can build the logistics,” Mr. Awuni stated, challenging the Minister’s assumption that critics lack the capacity to serve the nation. He urged Minister Ahmed Ibrahim to explain why public funds are cycled through a single private entity while the public assemblies remain stripped of the means to do the job themselves.