The President of the Republic of Zambia, H.E. Hakainde Hichilema has reiterated the need for Africans to work together to move the continent forward.
He said the collaboration, which must be on top of the agenda of the Africa Union and ECOWAS, must also be underpinned by trade and partnerships.
Africans must work together to promote development of the continent, and this must be on top of the agenda of the Africa Union and ECOWAS and should be driven by business,” H.E. Hichilema stressed.
The Zambian President made the remarks when he paid a working visit to the Accra Compost and Recycling Plant (ACARP) in Accra on Saturday, July 8, 2023, as part of his official visit to Ghana. He became the first African president, aside from Ghanaian presidents, to have visited the facility.
The visit was to afford him first-hand knowledge on how ACARP, a subsidiary of the Jospong Group of Companies, is managing Ghana’s waste and how best this could be replicated in Zambia.
The Zambian President commended the Executive Chairman of the Jospong Group for creating jobs and employing particularly Ghanaians.
He assured the Executive Chairman that Zambia is ready to work with the Group to help transform the sanitation challenges in that country.
I am pleased with what I have seen here. We do not have to reinvent the wheel. We will fall on the successes from Ghana,” he stated.
He noted that Zambia is currently facing challenges with its sanitation management, which is affecting its water bodies, and if care is not taken, the country will soon be consumed by waste.
We do not have time. If not, the waste will consume us. It is even contaminating our water bodies,” H.E Hichilema noted.
The Zambia President also expressed delight in the company’s ability to treat waste to produce organic fertilizer to support agriculture. Adding that the Russia- Ukraine war should guide the continent to produce essential items for itself.
Agriculture is very important because Africa must be food secure,” he stressed.
The Executive Chairman of Jospong Group, Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong, in welcoming the Zambia President to the facility, assured him of the capability and readiness of the Group to support Zambia to successfully manage its waste.
Explaining the structure of waste in Africa, he noted that 62% of waste generated in Africa is organic and only 14% is plastic and this informed the company’s interest to treat waste into compost for agricultural purposes and plastic pellets as raw material to feed industry.
Our compost can also be used to reclaim mining lands to improve fertility,” he added.
He suggested that Zambia can also consider implementing the free dustbin policy where households receive free dustbins to help assist households to properly store waste, adding that this greatly impacted Ghana’s waste management system.
Zambia can also consider the free dustbin policy since it greatly improved our waste management by changing the mindset of Ghanaians” Dr. Adjepong suggested to the Zambian president.
ACARP is an integrated waste processing and recycling company established to receive and process solid waste and produce organic manure for agronomic purposes in Ghana and the West African Sub-Region.
The plant also addresses the problem of plastic waste through sorting, processing, and recycling of such waste. Other recovered materials such as textiles, packaging materials, and other highly combustible materials are used to manufacture high calorific burning material/fuels (refuse
derived fuels) for specific industries that require such energy for their operations.
The group is currently operating in three cities in Zambia. It also has footprints in Angola, Togo, and Sierra Leone, among others.