The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) Foundation is seeking to impact the lives of at least five million Ghanaians across the country through the provision of various interventions as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR).
The goal is to make Ghanaians feel the direct benefit of the country’s oil resources across the 16 regions.
Dr. Dominic Kwesi Eduah, Executive Director of GNPC Foundation, who announced this, said the Foundation which used to execute its CSR activities only in the Western Region, extended them to all regions since 2017 on the instruction of the President for the benefit of Ghanaians.
He was addressing the media in Kumasi after commissioning four projects in the Ashanti Region.
The projects included three-unit classroom at Dasubimadwene, six-unit classroom at Asokwa, both in the Adansi-Asokwa District, a 12-seater toilet facility at New Atonsu and a six-unit classroom at Kumasi High School also in the Asokwa Municipality.
The GNPC Foundation provides its interventions under three main pillars, – education and training, economic empowerment as well as environment and social amenities.
Under the education and training component, 7,800 students have received various scholarships since 2018 out of which 1,500 have benefitted this year alone, according to the Executive Director.
He said 380 students have also been sponsored to study abroad with 200 currently being trained as doctors in Cuba and the expectation is that they would soon return to work in their respective localities.
Dr. Eduah said with the introduction of the Free Senior High School Policy, there was the need to scale up educational infrastructure to accommodate the huge numbers being admitted into various second cycle institutions.
He said the GNPC Foundation had executed 123 projects in the Ashanti Region with 43 of them being educational infrastructure, adding that the board of the Foundation was considering other projects in the region.
‘We have done a total of 123 projects in Ashanti Region including water and sanitation facilities and classroom blocks and we still get request from traditional authorities and other opinion leaders,’ he revealed.
He said GNPC was committed to impacting the lives of Ghanaians with the oil proceeds and thanked the media for bringing to fore the life-changing interventions across the regions.
The beneficiary communities and stakeholders expressed their profound gratitude to the GNPC Foundation for the projects which they described as impactful.
Mr. Ebenezer Ntow Ayisi, the District Coordinating Director for Adansi-Asokwa, said the new classroom block would enhance education in the community and charged authorities of the school to make it reflect in the performance of the pupils.
He further urged all stakeholders in the community to ensure the structure was maintained to serve the purpose for which it was constructed, saying that it was the way to justify the investment.
Mr. Benjamin Tawiah Twum, Headmaster of Kumasi High School, praised GNPC Foundation for putting up a modern classroom which would go a long way to enhance academic work in the school.
He said the classroom which was also furnished would reduce the furniture deficit in the school and also hasten plans to return to single track as more space and adequate furniture came on board.
Source: Ghana News Agency
