Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, behold the president of the Republic of Zimbabwe. And I begin with a word of prayer offered by Pastor Nelson. Our duties may rain around fertile fields. May we take this portion of literature made real through the blessing of God through rain. Please, it is with pleasure that I welcome you, Your Excellency, together with your sector center of excellence where we get to showcase innovation in management for Ghana and Africa. This afternoon's event is rather brief. President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, honorable ministers of Zimbabwe who are here and senior officials of government. Honorable, the Honorable Minister of Employment and Labor Relations, Honorable Rashid Po. The representative from local government. My own brother, Danish partner and executive chairman of Jospong. Executives of Jospong Group of Companies, board members who are all here. Permit me, because of time, I do not need to mention your names, but permit me, on the existing protocols, to acknowledge you. Dr. Mrs. Japon, my dear wife, ladies and gentlemen, friends from the media.
It is with great honor and profound pleasure that I warmly welcome His Excellency the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe to Ara Composter Recycling Plant, which is a subsidiary of the Jospong Group of Companies. Your Excellency, your presence here today is not only a privilege but also a strong symbol of African collaboration. I have admired you personally because of your leadership, your sterling leadership, and deep sense of strategy. Because a country that is under sanctions and is able to produce in agriculture in excess shows a kind of leader. A kind of leader, because in business, strategy is always the heart of business. And if a country is under sanctions and is able to produce wheat to export, that shows the kind of good leadership of Your Excellency. Congratulations.
Today's visit is especially significant; it has led to the forging of a strategic partnership—one that is built through vision, strengthened by engagement, and now manifested in purposeful collaboration. And this journey, I humbly want to, ladies and gentlemen, share the objective or why this mission—it all happened that Dr. Mrs. Se Japon embarked on Zimbabwe for agriculture exploration, wanted to move into rice farming, and we learned that we've been to Japan, China—let's come to Africa to learn. One of the best countries that we acknowledge was Zimbabwe, and we went there to learn of their method. And through that, Dr. Mrs. Lady Japon met the niche, and then that has built this meeting today.
We also want to acknowledge the immense contribution of the ambassador who was the Ghana ambassador to Zimbabwe, and then Ambassador Chinoza—they facilitated and organized this meeting that we are having, or this collaboration. Your Excellency, Jospong Group has created over 250,000 workforce. We have 10,000 staff that we manage. We have a bank. We have 76 companies. And this collaboration, in brief, is that we are coming to support. We are aware that he has started very good work in Harare, but the other nine cities, we are going to support him to deliver. We are going to support him with equipment, technology, and ideas to be able to deliver at this task. I will humbly, with all due respect, Your Excellency, permit me to just give a presentation of the plant that we are about to visit. I want to give a background of Jospong to the people of Ghana.
Waste management is a company established in April 2022 under a 30-year concession agreement with the government of Zimbabwe. Our project was granted additional project status by the government of Zimbabwe and was guaranteed by the government of Zimbabwe to support investment. The Pomona campsite used to be an avoided place. More than 1,000 families used to stay there at the dump site. But some of them were taken by the government to a safer place, and some of them are now working at Jospong Waste Management facility. We transformed the place to become a model waste management facility which meets international standards, and we are also into waste collection. In terms of waste collection, so far we have collected more than 300,000 tons of solid waste from the dump site. Door-to-door waste collection—we collected more than 70,000 tons using our trucks. We have the biggest sorting plant in southern Africa, which was commissioned by His Excellency in June 2025. In terms of employment growth, Jospong has more than 1,200 employees. In terms of infrastructure development—waste sorting plant, engineered landfill for solid and liquid—we have the water treatment plant. We have state-of-the-art sports facilities certified by FIFA, and it was the best facility built on a dump site.
So all that I said was done—built by its own people. Africa must be built by its own Africans. So this collaboration with the Jospong Group is going to change a lot of things in Africa. Done by Africans. The Jospong Group, their strength is in liquid waste management. We also, as Jospong, are strong in solid waste. So we collaborate together so that we make the waste industry well organized in southern Africa and Africa. Once again, Your Excellency, I want to thank you for blessing this partnership and also to support the industry of waste management. It is an honor to us as industrialists to see the president of the country supporting especially the waste management industry. No one wants to work in waste management—it is a place where you get dirty every day. But Your Excellency, you support this course, and we are very grateful and want to thank you once again for coming here and supporting this initiative. Thank you.
As a minister, to have an inspection of this wonderful project and to see the occupational safety and health management of this place. My idea was to see how many jobs are available here, how they can increase jobs, what their working conditions are, how safe it is to work here, and all that. After my inspections, I didn't waste time to give them an A+ because of what I saw. I saw that the working conditions for the workers were very good. There was huge commitment in supporting workers. There was increased intake of working people, and I was very satisfied that many of our Ghanaian youth were employed, because I was receiving letters from young people over a period of time asking me whether I can get them this job. You can't imagine that before Zoom Lion got into this job, many people saw sanitation work as mean and never wanted to get near it. And today I had many graduates applying to me and saying, 'Can you come and talk to him for me to get a job here?' And so I thought that I should just visit myself, and that is why I came here today.
I am here as his Minister of Honor, and I just want to make a point to say that it is a great opportunity for us to have him here. He is a great man, not because he is president only—long before he was president, we monitored him whilst he was fighting for independence. And I had an opportunity to ask him, 'How did you manage it that they did not catch you and do anything to you until you won independence?' But that is something else. But I am happy I am here, and I want to encourage you to work harder. And I want to assure him that this is a company we have huge confidence in, and we hope this collaboration can continue. Thank you.
