The NDC MPs, Foot Soldiers, And All Who Supported My Zoomlion Advocacy
The fight against Zoomlion has never been a one-man battle, as some sought to suggest. I led the fight, but I had support along the way, and I think it is fair to name some of the notable persons and institutions that deserve credit for the modest feat chalked so far. Here is the list of some individuals and institutions that have supported my campaign. I cannot name some of them.
- Joy FM & The Multimedia Group
Apart from me, the only other Ghanaian journalist to ever publish a major story against Zoomlion and the Jospong Group was Samuel Agyemang, a brilliant journalist who worked with Metro TV.
He won Ghana’s Journalist of the Year and other international awards. He resigned from Metro TV and left the media because of his story on Subah Infosolutions, a subsidiary of the Jospong Group.
Samuel Agyemang gave the reason for his resignation in a Facebook post on June 2, 2018. He wrote:“This is because I had prepared a story ready to be published in the news, but the station’s management warned me not to use the story on their network.
“I begged them to show the story in the interest of Ghana, but I was told my request was being denied in the interest of business.
“To prove my resolve to serve the country in truth, I published my story on YouTube and shared it with credible and serious media outlets like Citi FM. Then I immediately resigned. I declined any call and advice to return to my network to signal the fact that I value integrity.”
After his resignation, the Jospong Group moved in to buy Metro TV, and the rest of the story is still unfolding on Good Evening Ghana’s touch screens.
It is not strange that the president’s directive on the Zoomlion contract was missing from the newspapers, but when Zoomlion released its press statement, it was on the front pages of all the newspapers. A section of Ghana’s media appears to be entranced by Jospong and Zoomlion. They treat negative stories about Zoomlion like the leprosy of old—they wouldn’t touch it.
Start a Zoomlion story, and colleagues in your own newsroom would fight you, not on the facts of the story, but on their view that the business must be protected.
Joy FM and the Multimedia Group—except on one occasion after I’d left there—have always supported and carried my stories on the Jospong Group. Even though I faced an ordeal from the pro-Zoomlion journalists in the newsroom and in the company, Kwasi Twum and his management did not waver in their support for my stories on Zoomlion and other investigations.
So, this victory is not only mine, but also for Joy FM and the Multimedia Group for supporting accountability journalism.
When the CEO of the Jospong Group, Joseph Siaw Agyepong, sued me for defamation in 2017, the Multimedia Group paid the legal costs, even though the suit was against a post I made on my Facebook page. Mr. Siaw-Agyepong abandoned the suit after I filed my defence.
- Samson Lardy Anyenini
Apart from the defamation suit, Zoomlion also sued to stop me from obtaining information from some state agencies during my “Robbing the Assemblies” investigations. I won that suit. Samson Lardy Anyenini has been the lawyer who defended me in all the 11 defamation suits I have been slapped with since 2015. Seven of them, including Zoomlion’s Joseph Siaw-Agyepong, ran away after I filed my defence. The remaining four are ongoing.
- My Social Media Friends and Followers
I have been fighting Zoomlion and Jospong’s corruption for 12 years. This year, it got the most significant response and impact. That impact came from the support I received from my social media followers, who shared and engaged the posts I made from the publication on my website.
To all those who shared, engaged, and endorsed the cause, you have helped to prove that if businesses buy the mainstream media, we have an alternative to make our voices heard.
- Civil Society and Prof. Audrey Gadzekpo
In 2017, I published an investigation of a fraudulent contract that had been awarded to the Jospong Group. The $74 million contract was terminated following my investigation, but it caused me a significant amount of trouble. The Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) issued a statement condemning me for hurting a profitable Ghanaian business, despite overwhelming evidence that the contract was unnecessary and that the contract sum was highly inflated.
Surprisingly, the GJA did not raise any ethical breach against the investigation. The following morning, almost all the newspapers carried the story, and a very top senior official from Zoomlion called the Joy Super Morning Show team asking that they discuss GJA’s statement against me. (I left the GJA afterwards).
In that GJA-led media campaign against me, civil society groups, notably the Media Foundation for West Africa, CDD Ghana, the Ghana Integrity Initiative, and individuals, such as Prof. Audrey Gadzekpo, came to my defence. It was Manasseh against the media, and the CSOs showed up in my corner.
Apart from that support, the Ghana Integrity Initiative also funded the most comprehensive work I have done yet on Zoomlion and the Jospong Group—the three-part investigative series titled “Robbing the Assemblies,” part of which resulted in the $74 million contract cancellation. I have also received similar support from the Star Ghana Foundation to investigate the COVID-19 fumigation deals.
- The NDC Majority Caucus and Foot Soldiers
It has become a norm that when you wage a campaign against a dirty deal, the party in power often feels threatened and fights back. In this latest campaign, I received massive support from the NDC activists and foot soldiers on social media and some key persons in the John Mahama government, whom I’m not permitted to name.
When the YEA CEO, Malik Basintale, responded to my first open letter to him, suggesting that he was amenable to renewing the contract but not in its current form, I saw some NDC foot soldiers vehemently disagreeing with him, stating that the contract should never be renewed in any form.
The NDC’s majority caucus in parliament, led by Mahama Ayariga, played an important role in the recent campaign. When some parliamentary committees travelled across the country endorsing Zoomlion and Jospong’s shady operations and countering my campaign, the Majority Leader issued a statement calling out one of these committees, which was led by an NDC MP, Oti Bless. This rare act of patriotism silenced the parliamentary committees, who went about their work as if they were on the payroll of Zoomlion and Jospong.
Mr. Ayariga and the NDC, including my Facebook friends, I don’t take your support for granted.
- Kofi Agyepong and Vincent Assafuah
The immediate past CEO of the YEA, Kofi Baah Agyepong, is part of the reason the contract was not renewed before the NPP left office. In 2022, Kofi Agyepong fought for the cancellation of the contract, but he did not get the support of the board. The board, chaired by Anita Kusi Boateng, the wife of Rev. Victor Kusi Boateng/Kwabena Adu Gyamfi, was in favour of continuing the contract, even after the CEO proved that it was a waste of resources.
Kofi Agyepong said the YEA was capable of managing the sweepers. The two other members of the YEA board who supported Kofi Agyepong were Lawrencia Adams and Vincent Ekow Assafuah, the NPP MP for Tafo Pankrono. Both Kofi Agyepong and Vincent Assafuah have supported me immensely in this fight, and I appreciate them.
- My Family
My family members have borne the brunt of this campaign, and I thank them for their support.
The Way Forward
It didn’t have to take 12 years to get people to understand a simple story of corporate greed, corruption, and the complicity of government officials who shortchange the people they represent. However, like the man crying in the rain, the tears of the unfortunate sweepers have been drowned by the downpour of a sustained media campaign to whitewash a deal that stinks to the heavens.
President Mahama has set in motion a process that promises justice for the sweepers and justice for the people of Ghana, whose resources have been ruthlessly plundered by a shady business empire with the support of unconscionable politicians.
A lot of work still needs to be done to recover wrongful payments made to Zoomlion and the Jospong Group and to ensure that the assemblies take over the management of the sweepers. The government must cancel all the shady fumigation contracts and save the nation money.
The road ahead is long, but Martin Luther King Jr. was right. “The arch of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
Let’s keep fighting until we get justice.
By Manasseh Azure Awuni