Zoomlioon lands in Angola

Ghana and West Africa’s sanitation giants, Zoomlion Ghana Ltd have gone down South to secure a deal in Angola, where they would soon be exporting their expertise in waste management.
The company last week concluded negotiations with the Angolan government on their work in that country culminating in the establishing of Zoomlion Angola Limited.
This was disclosed by company Secretary Kwame Gyan at a press briefing on the activities of the company, explaining that General Manageress of Zoomlion, Florence Larbi had just returned from Angola after signing the contract.
This brings to five the number of countries in which the company currently operates, as they are already in Togo, Nigeria, Guinea where they have invested about $ 1 million already, and of course, Ghana.
“Many countries have done well because their local companies invest abroad and bring back home taxable income”, he observed, adding that Ghanaians companies must also be encouraged to do same.
Mr. Kwame Gyan who was reacting to certain comments in a section of the media as to the company’s tax compliance displayed documents to prove that the company’s compliant rate is as current as July 14 2009.
On the future of waste management in Ghana, the company secretary disclosed that Zoomlion is collaborating with INTOL-JPI to start piloting an integrated waste management project in the country. According to him the company will in the next six months install waste separation machines at its dump sites where the bulk of the waste organic waste will be separated from non-organic parts.
“From there the bulk of our waste, which is the organic part will no more go to our dumping sites but into composting to produce manure for the country’s crop production sector ”, Lawyer Kwame Gyan disclosed, adding that an initial capital of $ 2 million has been invested in that project.
He said the company has subsidiary companies such as J.A Plantpool, J.A Quarries at Wenchi which employs about 128n Ghanaians and has just concluded documentations to establish Zoil which is set to participate in both the upstream and downstream of Ghana’s oil industry.
The company secretary noted that it is important Ghanaians are encouraged to invest in the profitable sectors of the economy since whatever profit they make will be reinvested in the economy.
Using the contrast between Obuasi which has seen no development from the proceeds of the gold mines there and Johannesburg which “is a Megalopolis” because of investments into it from proceeds of the gold mines, Lawyer Gyan argued that the two situations are so because for Obuasi those who invested in the mines are expatriates while for Johannesburg indigenes invested in the mines.
On relationship with other local waste management companies, Mr. Gyan noted that the company gave an offer to all such local companies to buy equipment from Zoomlion on concessionary terms and pay by installment.
He said they did this because they are not afraid of competition, but believe in fair and healthy competition. According to him since they are not going to remain in collection and dumping of waste for ever, they believe other companies must also be encouraged and harnessed to grow.
Mr. Samuel Armah who is in charge of Research and Development at Zoomlion dismissed the claim that the company is creating a monopoly, saying if they wanted to they would not have been assisting other competitors with equipment.
He also explained that the nature of Ghana’s waste which is about 60% wet would be difficult to be turned into energy. He said if that kind of waste that does not have combusting material such as paper and other dry fuel were to be converted, it would need additional petroleum fuel for it to burn.
He warned that if an attempt is made to use plastic for combusting in that kind of venture Ghana stands the risk of experiencing acid rain.
By Justice Lee Adoboe, August 11, 2009