MTN Foundation: GHC9.38 invested in Ghana

DEVELOPMENT

By Nana Appiah Acquaye, Accra, Ghana

The Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana, Michael Ikpoki, says MTN Ghana, through MTN Foundation, has spent an amount of GHC 9.38 Billion on health, education and economic empowerment projects since 2007 to impact positively on the lives of countless Ghanaian across the country.

According to him in 2012 alone, critical interventions have been made through the provision of school blocks, medical equipment, ICT Centres and infrastructure to bring about quality health care in deprived communities that has and continues to impact millions of Ghanaians.

Ikpoki made this disclosure at the company’s head office in Accra during a ceremony to award scholarships to five brilliant but needy students who won the MTN Ghana’s 10 Million Merit Award Essay Competition. The awardees would each receive a scholarship package worth GHC 10,000.00 from MTN Ghana Foundation, which will enable them further their education in courses of their choice that will no doubt propel them towards economic empowerment.

The MTN Ghana Boss noted how Ghana stand as no exception when it comes to the difficulty and the challenges students the world over go through to obtain scholarships to support their education. “As we know, the higher we climb the educational ladder, the fewer the number of people who continue to pursue formal education. Several factors can be attributed to this, and one obvious factor is the high cost of education at the high level. To meet the needs of the students, scholarships have been instituted by private companies, governments and foundation” he said.

The MTN Boss who couldn’t hide his excitement for the award recipients urged the students to take their studies seriously so that they could serve as motivation for assisting more students who deserve such financial support.

He commended the MTN Foundation Board members for their insightful guidance, and acknowledged that if their approval and strategic counsel, the Foundation has been able to embark on life enriching projects all over the country.

In an interview with BiztechAfrica, the Corporate Service Executive of MTN Ghana, Cynthia Lumor, noted that 472 candidates participated in the easy competition and with the support of the judges they were scaled down gradually to five.