Jospong Group, the Ghanaian conglomerate led by tycoon Joseph Siaw Agyepong, has signed a $46 million concession to handle waste across The Gambia's three largest urban areas — Banjul, Kanifing and Brikama — according to Billionaires.Africa. The agreement was executed on Oct. 28 at State House in Banjul between the Gambian government and Zoomlion Ghana Ltd., Jospong's waste management subsidiary, with President Adama Barrow attending as guest of honour.
Agyepong, the group's executive chairman, signed on behalf of Zoomlion. The Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Natural Resources and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs represented the government, while the Banjul City Council, Kanifing Municipal Council and Brikama Area Council served as witnesses.
After the ceremony, Barrow and officials travelled to Tambana, near Brikama in the West Coast Region, to break ground on the country's new waste treatment facilities.
Why it matters
Waste collection has been a long-running failure around the capital. Billionaires.Africa reports that some Kanifing neighbourhoods, including Kotu and Manjai, have waited as long as a year without a collection truck. The concession hands a private operator responsibility for the full chain — from household pickup to treatment and recycling — in a country where the existing system has relied on open dumps.
The signing also marks another export of a model Jospong has spent two decades building in Ghana. Agyepong told officials in Banjul that Zoomlion now works in 29 African countries through more than 75 subsidiaries, employs 10,000 core staff and operates 38 waste treatment plants, according to Billionaires.Africa.
What the first phase covers
Under the initial stage, Zoomlion will finance, design and construct a mechanical biological treatment plant, which separates mixed refuse and processes its organic portion. The company will also build transfer stations where collected waste is consolidated before treatment.
Its responsibilities extend to collecting and transporting household and commercial waste, recovering plastics, metals and other materials for recycling, and closing the Bakoteh and Mile 2 dumpsites — the open tips serving Kanifing and Banjul.
A second phase, eligible to start after the agreement's second anniversary, would bring in liquid waste management and expand services to other parts of the country. Neither side has made public how long the concession runs or how the $46 million will be financed, Billionaires.Africa reports.
The waste contract was one of two investment agreements the Gambian government signed that day, together valued at $215 million. The larger one, worth $169 million, covers the second phase of the Soma solar park, expected to add 148.44 megawatts of solar capacity and an 85-megawatt battery storage system.
Assurances to local operators
Agyepong sought to calm concerns that existing Gambian firms would be sidelined. "No local player will be pushed out," he said at the signing, per Billionaires.Africa. He said Zoomlion would partner with NIRO, a Gambian company headed by Chief Executive Sulayman Cham, to draw local businesses into construction, procurement and maintenance work, and that young people and women would receive a share of the jobs created.
Environment Minister Rohey John Manjang framed the decision as unavoidable. "We cannot continue transforming the structures of this country without taking bold and creative steps," she said.
The contract follows a memorandum of understanding signed in Accra in March 2025. A 12-member Gambian delegation led by Manjang — including lawmakers, council officials and staff of the National Environment Agency — spent five days inspecting Jospong's waste facilities in Ghana before that agreement. Manjang said at the time that she wanted a treatment plant delivered through a public-private partnership and that the continent needed solutions developed on its own soil.
From a printing press to 38 plants
Agyepong founded Jospong as a printing venture in the 1990s and started Zoomlion in 2006 with a single hand-operated tricycle. The group has grown into one of Ghana's largest private companies, with holdings spanning sanitation, information technology, banking, insurance, real estate, agriculture and vehicle sales.
The Gambia contract continues a run of expansion beyond Ghana. In May 2025, Zoomlion Nigeria signed a concession with Lagos State to construct a materials recovery facility and a recycling plant and to operate transfer stations at the Olusosun and Solous III dumpsites, with completion targeted within 18 months. Days later, Zoomlion signed memorandums of understanding with the city of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Addis Ababa City Council in Ethiopia. This April, it agreed to collaborate with Geo Pomona Waste Management, a Zimbabwean firm, on collection, recycling and waste-to-energy projects in Zimbabwe.
Billionaires.Africa notes that the financial architecture behind the Gambia deal — including the tenor of the concession and the source of the $46 million — remains undisclosed.
Watch for the financing terms and concession length to surface, and for construction timelines at Tambana, which will indicate whether the promised shutdown of Bakoteh and Mile 2 proceeds on schedule.
