By Patrick Biddah
The Executive Chairman of the JOSPONG Group of Companies, Dr Joseph Siaw Agyapong, has heaped praises and expressed gratitude to the late former President, Prof. John Evans Atta Mills for saving his business from collapse
He said, the good old professor in his wisdom and in the spirit of developing local entrepreneurs, saved his business when there were calls for its collapse.
This, he said happened at a time that his waste management company , Zoomlion Ghana Limite,d had just been newly established in 2006 under a government which in few weeks , exited power to usher in the government of Prof .Atta Mills.
With the new Atta Mills government taking over the reins of power, Dr Siaw Agyepong, recalled how he did not know anyone in the government, but picked information about claims that his business was an opposition sponsored establishment which needed to be collapsed.
Speaking at the 6th in a series of the John Evans Atta Mills Memorial Lecture at the University of Health and Allied Sciences ( UHAS)at Ho in the Volta region over the weekend , under the theme: Sustaining Environmental Sanitation Gains Through Specialized Education, Dr Siaw Agyepong, called for the need for a national policy which will become a blueprint for the continuity of projects after changes in leadership.
“One day during the launch of one of our subsidiaries , we received a call that the late former President was coming but we didn’t know what to do and expect, but he came and told me I won’t collapse your business, although calls have been made to collapse it because you were established during the reigns of the previous administration “, he recalled.
Citing one example of such projects which needs to be continued after changes in leadership, he said Ghana imports jute sacks to the tune of $ 1.3 billion a year, when only $20m is what is needed to revive the collapse factory which was set up by Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
The lecture series which is named after the late former President , John Evans Atta Mills, is In view of the fact that he set up the University Of Health and Allied Sciences .
Dr Siaw Agyepong, who became the 6th speaker after the first lecture was delivered in 2016 by Prof. Sefa Dede who is a food technologist, also recalled that the late Prof helped him to secure an $80 million loan in 2012 for the Accra Compost and Recycling Plant which now processes 1,200 tonnes of waste everyday after it expansion from an initial processing of 600 tonnes.
Answering questions later on the best way to deal with the increasing huge tonnes of waste, he was of the view that the provision of dustbins to every corner of society, including in the kitchen and bedroom is the way to go.
The setting up of treatment plants for both solid and liquid waste, he added are the other means of successfully fighting waste.
In pursuance to this idea, he said the construction of plants are currently ongoing across the 16 regions with the one being constructed in the Volta region expected to be complete in the next three months.
The Vice Chancellor for the University of Health and Allied Sciences, Prof John Gyapong, who doubled as the chairman for the occasion, indicated that the University, has established 10 out of the 11 academic units which it was required to set up under ACT 828, which gave it the mandate for establishment.
The University, he revealed has done well in its almost 10 years of existence and has been able to churned out 5,428 health practitioners.
Out of this number, 333 he noted were doctors while 3, 123 nurses and midwives have also been trained as well as other health practitioners.
The school was started with 154 students but currently has over 7, 000 students, he noted..
Last weekend’s ceremony, was attended by all the institutions helping to preserve the Atta Mills legacy.
They were the Atta Mills Foundation, Atta Mills Institute and the Atta Mills Memorial Heritage.
