Mohammed Adjei Sowah
The management and staff of the Jospong Group and Zoomlion learns with great joy and pride the award conferred on the Accra Metropolitan Assembly and the Mayor of Accra Mohammed Adjei Sowah at the 2019 C40 cities Bloomberg Philanthropist Awards.
The award is in recognition of the efforts being made by the AMA to tackle the Global Climate Emergency and its impact, with the expansion of the operations of informal waste collectors in Ghana. The award also recognized the efforts of six other cities including Barcelona, Los Angeles, Paris, Sao Paolo
The event was under the theme “Ensuring better and longer lives for the greatest number of people”. In all, there were about 100 proven successful projects aimed at reducing climate pollution and improving people’s lives.
Mayor Michel R. Bloomberg-C40 Board President and UN secretary General’s Special Envoy for Climate Change was the guest speaker at the event. C40 Cities connects more than 90 of the world’s leading cities to take bold climate action and build a healthier and more sustainable future. Representing 700+ million citizens and one quarter of the global economy, mayors of C40 cities are committed to delivering on the most ambitious goals of the Paris Agreement at the local level, as well as to cleaning the air we breathe.
As we congratulate the mayor of Accra and his team for such a prestigious award, we wish to reiterate the need for a collaborative and deliberate efforts to tackle the sanitation menace from all angles.
In 2006, Zoomlion Ghana limited introduced the manual tricycles into the Ghanaian market as a simple but modernized way of waste collection to facilitate the collection of waste from areas without good roads. This innovation immediately changed the face of waste management in Ghana.
Seeing the impact of the manual tricycles on the economy of the country, the company imported more of these tricycles but this time motorized/mechanized and the ‘borla taxi’ to expand waste collection and create jobs for the youth.
Today, there are over 5,000 tricycles across the nation, which has created jobs for thousands of youth. Subsequently, Zoomlion Ghana limited has been in the forefront on introducing sustainable and cost effective waste management solutions into the county.
Some of the innovations introduced by zoomlion Ghana limited over the years include the construction of two transfer stations, a medical waste treatment facility, three recycling and compost plants in Accra and Kumasi, Plastic recycling plant and bringing an end to the 100 years hazardous disposal of faecal waste into the sea with the construction of the Sewerage Systems Limited.
The latest innovation is the inauguration of the Integrated Recycling and Compost Plant also designated as the Accra Waste Recovery Park. This innovative solution creates jobs for a large number of the youth in that enclave.
For Mohammed Adjei Sowah, we at JGC and Zoomlion have always seen your good works in the provision of toilet facilities, law enforcement activities and high interest in waste management activism since your appointment and have always encouraged you and your contemporaries to emulate your resilience if they want to succeed in the waste management space.
Jospong Group will continue to work with the government through the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to achieve the sustainable development goals and the vision of the President, to make Accra the cleanest city in the sub region.