Nairobi County has awarded a controversial 20-year waste management contract worth billions of shillings to Zoomlion Ghana Limited, a corruption-tainted foreign company previously blacklisted by the World Bank and recently dropped by Ghana’s government over integrity concerns.
The deal, signed by Governor Johnson Sakaja’s administration, grants the Accra-based firm exclusive rights to manage the 76-acre Dandora dumpsite and operate an integrated solid waste management system across the capital in what civil society groups are now calling a procurement scandal that threatens to drain taxpayer resources while handing over a strategic public asset to a firm with a documented history of corruption.
Investigations by Kenya Insights have established that Zoomlion was the sole bidder in a tender process that bypassed international competitive bidding protocols, raising serious questions about transparency and adherence to public procurement laws.
The contract, awarded under Tender NO: NCC/ENV/RFP/109/2025-2026, was opened on January 8, 2026, but critics argue the procurement violated requirements for Public Private Partnership projects by sidelining the Public Procurement Directorate.
Zoomlion’s troubled history reads like a catalogue of corruption scandals that would ordinarily disqualify any company from handling public funds. In 2013, the World Bank debarred Zoomlion Ghana Limited and two affiliates, Accra Compost Plant and Zoom Alliance, for two years after finding that the company had paid bribes to facilitate contract execution and invoice processing on the Emergency Monrovia Urban Sanitation Project in Liberia.
The company and its subsidiaries were barred from bidding on World Bank-funded contracts worldwide, a sanction that remained in effect until 2015 when Zoomlion entered into a Negotiated Resolution Agreement with the Bank, acknowledging misconduct and accepting responsibility.
In Ghana, Zoomlion’s relationship with state agencies has drawn persistent scrutiny over allegations of fraudulent billing, overbilling and questionable contracts.
The company became embroiled in the infamous GYEEDA scandal in 2013, one of Ghana’s biggest corruption cases, when investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni exposed massive corruption in the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency.
A government-appointed ministerial committee corroborated the findings, revealing that about 80 percent of the funds allocated for the youth employment programme went to private businesses and corrupt officials while only 20 percent reached the youth the programme was meant to serve.
Between 2009 and 2012, nearly 500 million dollars was spent on GYEEDA, with Zoomlion and other Jospong Group companies among the main beneficiaries.
The committee found that Zoomlion had received millions in payments for work not done and was overcharging the state. For instance, the company charged the government 25 million cedis more than warranted for providing tricycles.
The committee recommended discontinuation of Zoomlion’s contract, but successive Ghanaian governments failed to act on these findings.
Instead of being punished, Zoomlion continued receiving payments even after its contract expired in February 2013.
A cabinet sub-committee report revealed that despite President John Mahama’s directive to terminate the sanitation contract, Zoomlion continued rendering services to the state from 2013 onwards, accumulating debts of over 450 million cedis.
The Ghanaian Auditor-General repeatedly flagged Zoomlion for financial irregularities.
One report exposed how a waste bin contract awarded on a sole sourcing basis to the Jospong Group was inflated by at least 130 million cedis.
Another revealed that 98 million cedis was awarded to 11 companies under the Jospong Group to undertake fumigation when Zoomlion, the parent company, had already been paid for the same work.
The Ghanaian government pays Zoomlion 850 cedis per sweeper per month under the Youth Employment Agency initiative, but only 250 cedis goes to the workers, with Zoomlion pocketing the remaining 600 cedis as management fees. This arrangement has been described as exploitative by labour rights advocates.
In June 2025, Ghana’s newly elected President John Mahama terminated Zoomlion’s long-standing Youth Employment Agency contract, citing transparency concerns and fair compensation issues for workers. The decision marked a significant shift after years of controversy surrounding the company’s operations.
Despite these well-documented scandals, Nairobi has rolled out the red carpet for Zoomlion.
The timing of the contract award has raised eyebrows, coming just weeks after President William Ruto and Governor Sakaja announced a joint initiative to clean up the capital and relocate the Dandora dumpsite.
Ruto committed over Sh4 billion from the national government to support waste management improvements, with garbage collection set to begin on April 1, 2026.
During the 2025 Devolution Conference in Homa Bay, President Ruto commended Zoomlion Ghana Limited for its advanced, technology-driven waste management facilities after visiting the Jospong Group stand.
Interestingly, a City Hall delegation comprising teams from the Department of Environment and Procurement is scheduled to travel to Ghana tomorrow, February 15, for a benchmarking tour of Zoomlion’s facilities.
The timing has sparked criticism from procurement experts who question why due diligence would be conducted after awarding the contract rather than before.
Sources familiar with the tendering process told Kenya Insights that the procurement was structured to favor Zoomlion, with the tender framed as a local procurement despite the nature of the project warranting international competitive bidding under PPP regulations.
This approach eliminated competition and deprived Kenyan companies of the opportunity to bid for the lucrative contract.
The company’s executive chairman, Dr Joseph Siaw Agyepong, faces ongoing legal troubles in Ghana.
In late 2025, he and three others were dragged to court for contempt, accused of flouting High Court orders by entering disputed land and allegedly hiring thugs to destroy properties despite the existence of a court order and penal notice served upon them.
The application, filed by Royal Bell Investment Ltd, Terraform Development Ltd and other parties, avers that Jospong and the other respondents would not abate their contemptuous conduct unless convicted and punished by imprisonment.
In Mombasa, Zoomlion’s parent company, Jospong Group of Companies, is under investigation by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission over a Sh17 billion, 35-year waste management contract signed by Governor Abdulswamad Shariff Nassir.
The Centre for Litigation Trust, a Mombasa-based civil society group, has demanded transparency on the procurement process, public participation and whether the deal complies with public procurement and environmental management laws.
The Nairobi contract gives Zoomlion control over waste collection, haulage, sorting, recycling and disposal for two decades, effectively creating a monopoly that locks out local companies and potentially costs Kenyan jobs.
The 20-year tenure means the contract will outlast at least three gubernatorial terms, binding future county governments to a deal whose terms remain largely opaque to the public.
When contacted for comment, Governor Sakaja had not responded by the time of going to press. However, in a recent interview with Nation, Sakaja defended his collaboration with the national government, insisting that unlike the defunct Nairobi Metropolitan Services arrangement, the current framework is not a transfer of functions but a support mechanism.
He clarified that there would be no formal document under Article 187 of the Constitution transferring county functions, and emphasized that Nairobi’s unique status as Kenya’s capital demands a funding structure that reflects its national and international obligations.
“We have not ceded any functions. A transfer of functions is not what we are discussing and it is not something we will do,” Sakaja said, adding that Nairobi requires closer collaboration with the national government because it carries responsibilities far beyond those of an ordinary county.
The governor cited Section 6 of the Urban Areas and Cities Act, 2019, which recognizes Nairobi as Kenya’s capital and calls for formal cooperation between county and national governments on funding and service delivery.
According to Sakaja, Nairobi hosts the Presidency, Parliament, Judiciary, foreign embassies, key national institutions and global offices and therefore needs a special financing model similar to other major cities worldwide.
“Paris, with a population of 2 million, has a budget of Sh13 trillion yet Nairobi, with over 6 million people, has a budget of about Sh38 billion. If we want to compete with international cities, we must embrace special financing and strategic partnerships,” he said.
The controversy threatens to undermine President Ruto’s ambitious plan to transform Nairobi’s waste management system and restore the capital’s image. The president announced plans to build a modern waste treatment facility at Dandora by 2027 to produce fertilizer and generate energy from garbage.
Civil society activists are now calling for the tender to be cancelled and the procurement process reopened to ensure transparency, competition and value for taxpayers’ money.
Anti-corruption campaigners warn that the deal could replicate Ghana’s experience, where despite Zoomlion’s near-total monopoly over sanitation contracts and billions spent over two decades, Ghana remains one of the dirtiest countries in Africa.
The deal also raises questions about Kenya’s commitment to supporting local enterprises, as the contract hands over a strategic public asset to a foreign company with a documented history of corruption allegations, inflated billing and poor service delivery.
Nairobi generates approximately 3,000 metric tonnes of waste daily, making waste management a lucrative sector that could generate significant revenue through recycling and waste-to-energy projects if managed transparently and competitively.
Critics warn that awarding such a critical contract to a company with Zoomlion’s track record could expose Nairobi residents to poor service delivery while draining potential profits through corruption and overbilling, patterns well-documented in Ghana.
The Dandora dumpsite has operated for decades as a major environmental and public health hazard. In February 2026, the Environment and Land Court awarded Sh25.8 million in damages to 1,032 waste pickers who suffered constitutional rights violations due to prolonged exposure to air pollution at the site.
The court found both Nairobi County and the National Environment Management Authority jointly responsible for failing to protect workers from harmful pollution, adding legal pressure on the government to address longstanding concerns at the dumpsite.
Legal experts have warned that the structure of the Nairobi-Zoomlion deal, particularly the 20-year tenure and exclusive access to Dandora dumpsite, could expose the county to litigation from companies that were denied the opportunity to compete for the contract.
The Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act, 2015 requires that PPP projects above certain thresholds must be approved by the PPP Directorate and involve competitive bidding processes that ensure value for money and protect public interest.
By framing the tender as a local Request for Proposal while incorporating PPP elements, City Hall appears to have circumvented these safeguards, a move that could render the entire contract legally challengeable.
Governance experts have expressed alarm at the pattern emerging in Kenya where counties are awarding waste management contracts to Zoomlion despite the company’s well-documented corruption scandals in Ghana. After Nairobi and Mombasa, there are concerns that other counties may follow suit, creating a nationwide monopoly for a foreign company whose track record suggests taxpayers will not get value for money.
As Nairobi embarks on what officials describe as a transformative waste management era, the decision to partner with a corruption-tainted foreign firm threatens to turn what could have been a historic opportunity into yet another scandal that benefits a select few at the expense of taxpayers and the environment.
The saga also highlights the broader challenge of corruption networks that transcend borders, with politically connected companies moving from one African country to another, securing lucrative government contracts despite their tainted reputations, while local businesses that could deliver better value struggle to access opportunities.
For Nairobi residents who have endured decades of poor waste management, uncollected garbage and mountains of trash in estates, the promise of transformation rings hollow when delivered through a company whose home country terminated its contracts for the very failures Nairobians hope to escape.
