- Exploitative Payment Scheme: The Youth Employment Agency (YEA) pays GHS 850 per market cleaner, but only GHS 250 goes to the worker, Zoomlion pockets GHS 600, even though the workers lack insurance, transport, or basic protections.
- Expired Contract, No Legal Standing: The controversial contract between YEA and Zoomlion expired in September 2024. The former CEO of YEA wrote to terminate it, meaning Zoomlion has no valid agreement to continue receiving public funds.
- Basintale’s Accountability: Manasseh reminds Malik Basintale, the new CEO of YEA, that any attempt to reintroduce or continue this fraudulent arrangement will be his personal responsibility, not inherited.
- Ghost Workers?: Several municipal assemblies, including the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, have failed to verify the number of workers Zoomlion claims to employ. Yet, YEA continues to disburse funds to unverified lists.
- Evidence of Fraud from the Past: In 2018, a YEA-led headcount revealed that Zoomlion grossly inflated the number of workers, but the contract was still not terminated, exposing systemic fraud.
- Assemblies Already Hiring Sweepers: Many local governments are paying their own sanitation workers, separate from Zoomlion, for the same cleaning tasks, proving that Zoomlion’s “workers” often don’t exist or aren’t doing the work.
- Unpaid Workers Despite Massive Profits: Manasseh notes that many sweepers have not been paid in over a year, despite Zoomlion collecting full fees monthly, raising questions about the company’s claim of “pre-financing.”
- Double Dipping: Zoomlion not only takes GHS 600 per cleaner from YEA but also charges assemblies separately for disposing of the same waste through the Sanitation Improvement Package (SIP), earning twice on one job.
- Both NDC and NPP Are Complicit: The scheme has been protected by both Mahama’s and Akufo-Addo’s governments, exposing a bipartisan failure to end waste and corruption in public sanitation funding.
- A Call to Integrity and Reform: Manasseh appeals to Malik Basintale and younger NDC leaders to break with the past, uphold ORAL principles (Openness, Responsibility, Accountability, Leadership), and dismantle this entrenched corruption.
So what?
Manasseh Azure Awuni urges Malik Basintale not to renew the contract with Zoomlion, calling it exploitative and unfair to cleaners. He highlights ongoing issues with the deal, such as low wages and lack of transparency, and stresses the importance of protecting Ghana’s youth from such exploitation.
