MTN Ghana Foundation contributes a total of 10m to support Govt fight against COVID-19

MTN Ghana Foundation has donated GHC5Million to National COVID Trust Fund to support government’s effort in combating Corona Virus pandemic in the country. This presentation brings MTN’s total contribution to the National COVID Trust Fund to Ghc10 million.

Speaking at a ceremony to present the cheque to Trustees of the Fund at the Jubilee House, the CEO of MTN Ghana, Mr. Selorm Adadevoh expressed his gladness at the opportunity given to MTN to demonstrate its commitment to the people of Ghana by supporting the Trust Fund in their fight against COVID-19.  He said, “Our support to the Trust Fund is to ensure the Government’s strategy in combating the pandemic is fully achieved”.

“We believe this will help immensely to provide the needed PPES, education and other services for the people of Ghana and most importantly to brighten lives as we celebrate our 25^th Anniversary”, he added. 

Receiving the cheque on behalf of the Trustees of the National COVID Trust Fund, the chairperson of the Fund, Justice Sophia Akuffo, said, “The contributions have dwindled over the past year. I’m happy that MTN Ghana has come through. MTN Ghana has been a key supporter of the COVID Trust Fund and has contributed a total sum of 10 million Ghana cedis. It is one of the few organizations to have contributed this much to support the fight against COVID-19 in Ghana. We are truly grateful for their assistance.”

She added that, “There seems to be this false notion among the public that the pandemic is gone. The fact is the extent of the pandemic has been quite devastating and continues to cause death. There seems to be evidence of a new variant developing. We continue to encourage the Ghanaian citizenry to continue to adhere to all the COVID-19 protocols. We also strongly encourage that they get vaccinated. We are grateful to MTN and hope other organizations will follow their example as we all work to fight his deadly virus.”

The donation to the National COVID-19 Trust Fund is one of the many interventions by MTN Ghana to help stem the COVID 19 pandemic. At the time when the nation was highly in need of PPEs, test kits and PCR Machines in 2020, the MTN Ghana Foundation donated 44,000 Personal Protective Equipment, four (4) Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Machines and Test Kits to the National COVID Trust at the cost of GHS 5 Million. The donation was to help the National COVID Trust Fund enhance the protection of all health personnel in the fight against COVID -19 in the Country.

Some of the other key interventions include: Collaboration with the National Information Technology Authority (NITA) to offer all Government workers free access to the Smart Workplace Portal to support Government’s work from home program and protecting the customer through the provision of critical health information. Other interventions werethe provision of free internet access to over 200 websites for online education for public and private institutions and free MoMo transfers up to Ghc100 a day and revision of MoMo wallet limits. MTN Ghana supported the infection monitoring and contact tracing team through the provision of 800 SIM Cards and 8 Terabytes of data to National Security and 10 TurboNet fixed wireless devices with over 2 terabytes of data to the COVID-19 Response Team for use by contact tracers. MTN has also deployed mobile money merchant accounts as collection conduits to support Government institutions such as the Ministry of Finance and the First Lady’s mobilization fund for COVID-19.

MTN Ghana also contributed three educational campaigns aimed at getting people to live responsibly. “Be Wise”,  Wear it for me” and “One More Push” campaigns were to encourage people across the continent not to give up in the fight against COVID-19, and to continue to wear their masks, wash their hands and practice social distancing.

On the vaccination front, MTN Group donated USD$25million to support AU’s vaccination rollout across 55 member states to cover 7 million vaccine doses for health workers.

MTN Ghana Foundation will continue to support efforts aimed at mitigating the impact of COVID -19 in Ghana.

The MTN Ghana Foundation was established in November 2007 as the vehicle to select and implement MTN’s Corporate Social Investments. MTN Ghana Foundation has three areas of focus -Health, Education and Economic Empowerment.  From its inception to date, the Foundation has undertaken 157 major projects across the country. Notable health projects include construction of a Neonatal Care Center for Tamale Teaching Hospital, refurbishment of the 2^nd floor maternity block of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, construction of a maternity block for Ejisu Government Hospital, and construction of an Emergency Center for Atua Government Hospital. Education projects undertaken include  construction of a boys dormitory for Akropong School for the Blind, construction of a six-unit classroom block for Kodjonya Millennium School, establishment of 10 MTN ICT Learning Centers in each of Ghana’s 10 regions and the institution of an Innovation Hub at KNUST to promote Telecoms Engineering and Research. Key projects undertaken in Economic Empowerment include: the construction of shea butter processing centers, provision of seed capital and skill training for Women of Tizaa Dini Association of Yendi and the Sung Suma Women Association of Wa.