Billions in Sanitation Levy Collected, yet Deaths and Piles of Waste Mount

Across Ghana, uncollected heaps of garbage are a common sight in urban markets, street corners, residential communities and even some school yards. Left with no other option for disposing of the waste, many resort to burning, which contributes to a silent epidemic of deaths from air pollution.

All these environmental-related problems were supposed to be a thing of the past after government spent billions of cedis ostensibly to solve the country’s sanitation and pollution issues.

Much of those billions, drawn from the Sanitation and Pollution Levy introduced by the NPP government under Nana Akufo-Addo in 2021, went to one company, The Jospong Group, but there is little to show for it on the ground, leaving many wondering what exactly the money was used for.

For example, in the Madina Market in Accra, flies buzz over a rapidly growing mound of garbage beside a waste bin. Plastic bags packed with every filth imaginable, line the market’s busy streets and alleys, attracting flies and releasing a foul stench that hangs thick in the air.

In the market, several areas that are supposed to be collection points for garbage, have turned into mounds of filth, forcing vendors, hawkers, and shoppers to navigate carefully around piles of stinking waste.

“When the container is full, they do not come for it, [forcing] many individuals to put their rubbish on the ground,” says a vulcanizer whose business is right across the mountain of garbage. “This makes it difficult for us who work in this area. It smells a lot and can breed sicknesses.”

“As we are talking now, the rubbish has been stuck here for more than a month; it hasn’t been collected,” a trader told The Fourth Estate. “We don’t have any other option than to work here like that.”

• Pictures of reeking uncollected garbage in the Madina market, Accra.

The situation is not different in Akwatia line, a suburb of Kumasi in the Ashanti Region. A resident, Abubakar Lukeman, lamented how uncollected waste clogs the drainage in the area, resulting in flooding, which caused deaths in the community.  

“The basin is small, so rubbish from Aboabo [and] Alabar chokes it, blocking rainwater flow. KMA isn’t clearing the rubbish, and with the rainy season, the drain [overflows], causing harm,” he said. “Last year, it overflowed, and two people drowned.”

• Choked drains in Akwatia line in Kumasi.

In Techiman, drivers in the main station of the capital of the Bono East Region say they have been compelled to take on the responsibilities of street cleaners.

“The Zoomlion team stopped sweeping this area, forcing us to clean it ourselves and pay drivers to haul rubbish to the dumpsite,” one driver says. “The station is so dirty. We’re suffering. If Zoomlion won’t sweep anymore, they should say so.”

• Uncollected garbage at the Techiman main station.

From Madina to Akwatia line to Wa, there are more than enough heaps of rubbish to stand on to question why the Sanitation and Pollution Levy (SPL) was introduced and exactly how the fund was used. The levy was a 10-pesewa tax on each liter of fuel bought at the pumps to help build up a steady stream of funding to improve air quality in urban areas, enhance garbage collection to stop waste burning and build waste treatment and disposal facilities, among others.

• Pictures of dumpsites in Bechem in the Ahafo Region.

Ironically, in the year the Sanitation and Pollution Levy was introduced, the Ghana Statistical Service reported that 24.8 million Ghanaians lacked basic sanitation, and households practicing open defecation had doubled from 740,000 to 1.5 million between 2000 and 2021.

While solid waste collection improved briefly up to 2010, it declined over the last decade, overwhelming public dumpsites used by more than a third of households and pushing many to burn their trash, filling the air with toxic smoke. The 2025 State of Global Air report estimates that air pollution killed about 32,500 Ghanaians in 2023, up from 31,900 in 2022.

From 2021 to 2024, the levy generated GHC1.73 billion in total. Disbursements from the levy began less than a year after its introduction. By the end of 2024, GHC1.48 billion, representing over 80% of payments from the levy, had been made to the Jospong Group of Companies alone. The company had won a lot of contracts across the country to be responsible for most of the operations and activities to clean up the cities, towns and villages and reduce air pollution.

However, with so little, if anything to show for the expenditure from the SPL, many are left wondering what Zoomlion and other entities under the Jospong Group, spent GHC1.4billion on.

Professor Kofi Amegah, an associate professor of Environmental and Nutritional Epidemiology at the University of Cape Coast, was shocked when he heard that about 80% of the SPL had been paid to the Jospong Group of Companies.  

“Wow! GHC1.4 billion of that money goes to one company, and we are still struggling with waste management in this country?” he asked.

A breakdown of the amounts paid to the Jospong Group shows that it received over GHC370 million every year – that is about GHC31 million every month, which comes to an average of GHC1 million cedis per day over a four-year period.

Professor Amegah wondered why the government continued to pay the company when there was little improvement in the country’s waste management.

“I think this company needs to be given performance contracts. What is the basis for continuing to give money to this company? Something has to change,” he said.

Desmond Appiah, Country Lead for Clean Air Fund, says it was “great” that there was a stable source of funding to curb sanitation issues, especially air pollution.

But he asked: “Where in the pollution chain are we trying to tackle? All the records show that pollution levels are going up,” he says, stressing that “waste is one of the key sources of pollution” in both urban and rural areas in Ghana.

Duncan Amoah, the Executive Secretary of the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), criticized the SPL, stating, “anybody can slap any tax at all, but at the end of the day, are they even using the money for what they are collecting it for? My answer will be a big ‘no’.”

He further noted that Ghana’s cities are “even dirtier” despite the four years of levy collection, highlighting the disconnect between the funds disbursed and the lack of tangible results.

For Florence Kuukyi, the Director of Public Health at the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), the problem is worsening because some of the waste management companies are given contracts and paid for jobs they cannot execute, as they do not have the necessary equipment and personnel. 

She therefore insists that the lack of supervision of the contracts with waste management companies is to blame for the worsening sanitation in the country.

“These waste management companies do not work on their own,” she says, asserting that “if you have a franchise agreement with somebody, it is your duty to monitor the work the person is doing.”

The Fourth Estate requested comments from Zoomlion Ghana Limited, the main Jospong subsidiary, to clarify why, despite these payments, the country’s sanitation situation remains bad. However, after several follow-ups, the company is yet to respond.

The Ministry of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs (MLGCRA) is responsible for over GHC1.1 billion paid to the six Jospong subsidiaries. But the Ministry has repeatedly refused to respond to queries from The Fourth Estate.

The second part of this story will reveal how the GHC1.4 billion was disbursed to six companies of the Jospong Group and which ministries made those payments.

Emmanuel Bright Quaicoe contributed to this report.