Ghanaian waste management tycoon Joseph Siaw Agyepong's Jospong now operates in 29 African countries

The Jospong Group of Companies has expanded its waste management operations into 29 African countries, its executive chairman Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong confirmed on Monday, describing the milestone as a major step in Ghana's broader effort to lead a continental waste management transformation.

Agyepong made the announcement on the sidelines of a high-level stakeholder dialogue on landfill and waste management in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area, organised by the Ministry of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs in collaboration with the Jospong Group.

"The Giant Step into 29 African countries positions Ghana at the heart of the continent's waste revolution," he said.

The group currently employs 10,000 direct staff and has created more than 250,000 indirect jobs across the 29 markets it operates in. Its continental footprint includes operations in West, East and Central Africa, spanning Nigeria, Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Rwanda, Liberia, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Gabon, among others. The group currently operates between 40 and 50 treatment facilities covering solid waste, liquid waste, medical waste, hazardous waste, recycling and composting.

Jospong's waste management operations are anchored on Zoomlion Ghana Ltd., the subsidiary Agyepong founded in 2006. Zoomlion pioneered an integrated approach to urban waste collection in Ghana through public-private partnerships and has become one of West Africa's most recognised environmental services brands.

Agyepong said the group's continental expansion strategy is built on a financing architecture designed to reduce dependence on sovereign guarantees and traditional donor funding, allowing the company to enter new markets without placing additional financial burdens on host governments.

"What Zoomlion has developed is that we have developed sustainable financing, an architecture that is very free from sovereign states, sovereign guarantees, and other things from financing agencies. And that is what we have now unleashed to Africa," he said.

Agyepong founded Jospong in 1995, starting from his mother's table-top stationery business with capital equivalent to $3. The group has since grown into one of Ghana's most diversified private conglomerates, with more than 76 subsidiaries across 14 sectors of the economy including sanitation, logistics, ICT, finance and automotive. He also serves as president of the Environmental Service Providers Association.

The group plans to expand into five additional African countries by 2028, targeting the creation of 50,000 green jobs and actively seeking strategic partnerships and co-investment from international capital.

The stakeholder dialogue brought together representatives of 26 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies in the Greater Accra Region, sanitation experts, waste management companies, civil society organisations and private sector stakeholders to address landfill capacity, sustainable financing and waste infrastructure challenges in the region.

Ghana's Local Government Minister Ahmed Ibrahim called on stakeholders to treat waste as a valuable economic resource rather than purely a disposal problem. "Ghana cannot afford to remain solely focused on disposal when valuable resources continue to exist within waste streams," he said. He called for greater inclusion of informal sector workers and young people in any future waste management roadmap.