The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) is calling for a comprehensive review of the government’s sanitation contract with Jospong Group of Companies, operators of Zoomlion Ghana Limited, citing glaring transparency and accountability gaps in the fumigation services rendered.
During a session with the Parliamentary Select Committee on Sanitation and Water Resources, AMA’s Director of Public Health, Florence Kuukyi, expressed frustration over what she described as “top-down contract enforcement” that excludes local implementers from decision-making and monitoring processes.
According to Kuukyi, the AMA and other key actors are often left out of contract negotiations and operational activities, yet are required to sign off on reports without any verification of the work supposedly done.
“These contracts are signed without our knowledge. We’re not involved in the actual fumigation, yet we are expected to endorse reports as witnesses. Whether we sign or not, payments go through anyway,” she stated.
She emphasized the need for a “repackaging” of the Sanitation Improvement Package (SIP) contract to give local assemblies a direct role in oversight, adding, “We can’t continue to be spectators while our credibility is tied to activities we don’t control or observe.”
Her remarks have renewed public scrutiny over long-standing sanitation contracts awarded to the Jospong Group, particularly those criticized for inefficiencies and a lack of transparency.
Stakeholders are now urging the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources to conduct a performance audit and re-negotiate future contracts with built-in accountability mechanisms that involve the very assemblies responsible for sanitation enforcement on the ground.
