Zoomlion to offer political parties discount during campaigns
Waste management company, Zoomlion Ltd, has pledged to offer its services at a discount to all Ghanaian political parties as its contribution towards the country’s upcoming general elections.
Although the company does not state how much the discount will be, Zoomlion plans to deploy workers to all campaign venues in consultation with the political parties, to help bring sanitation sanity to such venues during and after political rallies.
Presenting an update on Zoomlion’s activities in the past year during a press briefing at the company’s head office in Accra, Tuesday, August 28, 2012, Mr. Lawrence Laryea, Operations Manager, stated; “One of the key issues we are working on now, is the sanitation situation as we go through our campaign towards election 2012 – and our commitment level is very high – we intend to deploy personnel to be present at all the political rallies in consultation with the various political parties, and we will be giving discount to the political parties that would want to engage our services in their rallies.”
The collaboration, Mr. Laryea said, is also to enable the company intensify its public education during the electioneering period, “to ensure that our environment is clean.”
Emphasising that corporate social responsibility is very key to Zoomlion’s operations, he mentioned a Zoomkids club that has been established in schools to inculcate good sanitary practices in children.
The operations manager also hinted that the company’s second batch of 30 Zoom Captains (an initiative embarked on to introduce women into the operation of heavy-duty and earth-moving equipment), will be trained in October this year, as part of its programme to adequately equip personnel to handle those work equipment.
Further, to assist in public education, which he stated is very key to the company’s operations, Mr. Laryea said they have organised clean-up exercises and made some donations in the past year, disclosing, “One of the key [donations] is GH¢ 150,000 that we supported the Accra Metropolitan Assembly [AMA] with, when they were trying to stop the shift programme.”
According to the operations manager, the money was specifically used to construct some classroom blocks for schools within the AMA jurisdiction in the Greater Accra Region that employed the shift system.
He also made mention of a Waste Management Institute that is still under construction, divulging that hopefully the first programme will begin in September 2013.
An oil waste treatment plant which is nearing completion, will also be ready for commissioning by September 2012, he told journalists at the briefing.
Earlier in his welcome address, Mr. Emmanuel Okomeng, Acting Managing Director, Zommlion Ghana Limited, stated that the company has attained a level of success in its field of endeavour, due to its adoption of a multi-faceted approach to solving the waste management and general environmental problems that have bedevilled the country for many years, though that has not been easy on them.
“We have vowed to spearhead the campaign to totally rid Africa of filth and boost the tourism potential of the continent. Zoomlion Ghana Limited hopes to achieve this dream through effective collaboration with various governments and other players in the sanitation industry, who we prefer to refer to as partners,” he said.
He told the media, that the meeting was essentially to brief them on a Zoomlion Alliance Project and also to make known to them, how the company was braising itself for a filth free environment before, during and after the electioneering period.
By Edmund Smith-Asante