MTN dealers donate to Northern disaster victims

The Chairman of i-TEL Limited Kwesi Amoafo-Yeboah has called on stakeholders to engage the services of experts to use the northern region disaster as a case study to prepare a nationwide strategy for rapid response to such occurrences.

“We as a nation need not wait till such disasters happen before we find ways of responding. Let’s have a well devised mechanism to test our national stamina in responding to disasters of all sorts”, Kwesi Amoafo-Yeboah advised.

He suggested this when he represented nine major MTN distributors to make donation to victims of the Northern Region disaster.

The dealers donated one thousand 50kg bags of rice to the flood victims of the Northern Region. The donation worth over GhC30, 000 (¢300,000,000) which is a mark of their collective humanitarian support, is to assist in the rehabilitation and upkeep of the victims.

Contributing dealers are Foncards Express, i-TEL Limited, Lesken, Microcell, Mobile Choice, Mobile R US, Sud Telecom Transaction Solutions and V-Mobile. In addition, i-TEL Limited mobilised its sub-dealers which include Rifikin, Bantus, K. Solutions, Nanatel 3, Ees Telecom and Phonecards to contribute towards the donations.

Presenting the items on behalf of the distributors, Kwesi Amoafo-Yeboah, expressed the groups’ sympathy to the victims and pleaded with other private companies and non-governmental organizations to assist in ameliorating the condition of the victims. He believed that solutions to Ghanaian problems lie with Ghanaians and challenged indigenous corporate bodies to see this as an occasion for assistance.

“Ghanaians must begin to solve their own problems and this is the perfect opportunity to put that in practice. We must endear ourselves to culture of giving and helping each other in dire situations in order not to suffer implications of donor fatigue”, stated Kwesi Amoafo-Yeboah.

He observed that disasters such as those that occurred in the three northern regions though inevitable present occasions for lessons that could help the nation to strategise to deal with similar future circumstances. “Disasters occur in the developed countries too, but the difference is their abilities to deal with such occurrences and alert systems put in place to signal those directly responsible to rapidly respond to such circumstances”, noted Kwesi Amoafo-Yeboah.

He said when such strategies are devised, corporate bodies will definitely contribute to sponsor any mechanisms that could check disasters since they also lose anytime it occurs.

Receiving the donation, the Upper East Regional Minister, Alhassan Samari thanked the MTN distributors for their kind gesture and expressed the hope that more of such donations would be forthcoming to enable the victims recover from their unfortunate incidence. He acknowledged that though government had provided support to the victims, contributions from corporate bodies had significantly helped the situation.

The regional Minister hinted that government is considering a medium and long term strategy to lessen the implications of such disasters in future.

In a related development, FreshPac, an emerging Ghanaian Agro Processing and Packaging Company presented ten cartons of Shitopac (an instant ready to eat pepper sauce) worth GhC1000 to the disaster victims. Ekow Sam, CEO of FreshPac stated that the company, moved by the severe human suffering caused by the floods could not resist making donation in its small way. He also shared the view that Ghanaians are capable of solving their own problems and suggested that local entities should be challenged in this vein.