In the tangled web of Ghana’s waste bin scandal, what started as a seemingly noble attempt to promote sanitation across the country turned into a multi-million-dollar embarrassment riddled with inflated prices, questionable procurement decisions, and government inaction.
At the center of the controversy are high-ranking public officials and the Jospong Group, owned by business magnate Joseph Siaw Agyepong.
Investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni, who broke the story in 2017, has laid bare how the rot unfolded.
According to Manasseh, the procurement scandal originated in 2016 when then-Chief of Staff Julius Debrah directed the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to acquire one million waste bins for households across Ghana.
Julius Debrah also wrote to the Finance Ministry, instructing them to make budgetary provisions for the purchase in 2017.
“I did not get evidence that Julius Debrah took part in the procurement process or the inflation of the prices besides these instructions. But there was one important thing he should have known. Before becoming the Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah was the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development. Collins Dauda replaced him.”
Manasseh Azure Awuni,
In his time as minister, 155,000 bins were procured from Qualiplast, a local plastics giant. By 2016, only 100,000 had been distributed — the rest were still languishing in government hands, unused.
Manasseh recounted that some people ended up using the 240-litre bins to store water, while others simply ignored them—especially after certain assemblies resorted to drilling holes in the bins to discourage misuse.
This disconnect between policy and real-life needs highlights how poorly aligned the procurement decision was with actual community behavior.
It also raises a critical concern: why did Julius Debrah push for an additional one million bins when the Ministry struggled to distribute even 100,000?
Next in line was Collins Dauda, who succeeded Debrah as Minister of Local Government. It was under his watch that the scandalous contract was signed.
Despite existing bins wasting away in various assemblies, Dauda approved a new contract for one million bins and 900,000 bin liners.
The deal was awarded not to experienced manufacturers like Qualiplast, but to five companies — all subsidiaries of the Jospong Group.
Waste Bin Deals Shows Inflated Prices, Misplaced Priorities
Furthermore, Manasseh Awuni pointed out that the core of the waste bin controversy centers on its staggering cost.
The contract, awarded in November 2016, totaled $74 million—$60 million allocated for the bins and $14.04 million for bin liners. His investigation uncovered significant instances of price inflation that raise serious concerns about the integrity of the deal.
“The contract price was inflated by $34.3 million. I went to the same Jospong companies for invoices, which were far lower than the price they quoted in the government contract.”
Manasseh Azure Awuni,
A telling example? Jospong sold bin liners to Manasseh at GHS1 (around $0.23) per piece. Yet, in the government contract, the same liners were billed at a staggering $15.60 each.
Based on Jospong’s retail price, the total cost for 900,000 liners should have been around $207,000. But the government was billed $14 million.
Even more eyebrow-raising was a speech by Joseph Siaw Agyepong in December 2016 during Zoomlion’s 10th anniversary durbar.
With President Mahama, ministers, and church leaders present, Agyepong proudly declared, “We were the first company to distribute FREE waste bins to households in Ghana. Currently, we have distributed 200,000. Our vision is to distribute one million FREE waste bins to all households in the year 2017.”
However, Manasseh revealed that by the time Agyepong made that statement, the $74 million contract had already been awarded a month earlier. The “free” bins were anything but.
“It makes no sense that a contract worth $207k is sold to the government for $14 million,” Manasseh stated, stressing that Jospong companies were clearly aware of the inflated prices.
He also added that Joseph Siaw Agyepong personally gets involved in his companies’ government contracts — most recently appearing before Parliament over another controversial deal with the Youth Employment Agency (YEA), where Zoomlion keeps GHS600 out of GHS850 meant for each sweeper.
The rot didn’t end there. The Ministry of Local Government, under Collins Dauda, applied to the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) to sole-source the contract to Jospong.
The justification? An “urgent” need to prevent a cholera outbreak — in October, just before the dry season.
The PPA approved the request without questioning the inflated prices or the rationale for selecting companies with no plastics manufacturing capacity over proven local firms.
“Good news, the $74 million contract was cancelled after my investigation. Zoomlion had not delivered, and payment had not been made when I broke the story.”
Manasseh Azure Awuni,
However, despite supporting police investigations into this and another fumigation contract — for which over GHS200 million was paid — no one has been prosecuted.
In the end, the waste bin scandal is a cautionary tale about weak procurement oversight, elite collusion, and how easily public funds can be siphoned off under the guise of national development.
With no prosecutions years later, the public must ask: Who really protects the public purse?
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