The management of Zoomlion group of companies in collaboration with Kwame Nkrumah University of Technology (KNUST) has rolled out a sanitation institute to help train people in sanitation and waste management in the country.

The institute, which was established in 2009, has organized modular short courses in modern sanitation management for over seventy Government workers at its head office in Accra.

The institute is a trailblazing institute that has heralded the dream of the company in being the leading waste management company in the country.

The institute of Sanitation and Waste Management (TISWAM), an ultra-modern research and learning facility affiliated to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), is poised to accept its first set of students this academic year.

TISWM boasts of the state-of-the-art teaching and research facilities that can match the best anywhere in the world in higher education institutions that specialise in environment, sanitation and waste management; was borne out of the vision and drive of Dr. Joseph Siaw Adjapong, the founder and the Executive Chairman of the Zoomlion Group of companies West Africa.

The establishment of the institute is certainly a timely response to the challenges in the magnitude of waste management in the city.

Speaking with the media, Mr Agyapong said there is now an urgent need for bold and committed leadership in the way of waste disposal.

He said KNUST-TISWM, as the name suggests, is a partnership between the Zoomlion Group and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).

“It is a partnership arrangement in which Zoomlion, a market leader in the waste and sanitation business, optimizes the academic and intellectual resources of a leading university such as KNUST to solve real community-based challenges”.

The laudable initiative of public-private partnerships (PPP) with KNUST is a model that presents a functional PPP with comparative advantages and scarce resources.

He explained that the initiative gives further credence and meaning to the power of creative partnerships, “but it is also a laudable precedence and a welcome addition to Zoomlion’s endless contribution to Ghana, and for that matter Africa’s sustainable development agenda, particularly in the area of environmental sanitation and waste management”.

The Institute holds the panacea to sanitation and waste management in Africa. “Its ultra-modern facilities position it firmly at the forefront of research, technological innovation and operational practices that will potentially transform the landscape of waste and sanitation management in Africa," he said.

He posited that the Institute appears to be more than ready to train the next generation of twenty-first century waste and sanitation professionals who will have the requisite ability and capacity to bring cutting-edge science, technology, research, and learning into the seamless convergence with real life problems and in our different communities.