Unilever Ghana has presented various categories of awards to 19 of its best performing customers and partners for the year 2011, including a total cash prize of GHC50 million to the three top winners to do projects of their choices in their respective communities. The three top award winners were Nan Limited from Ashanti Region, which won the overall best customer award and took home GHC25,000; Gam Enterprise Limited was first runner-up, and won GHC15,000; while Dansam Link took home GHC10,000 as the second runner-up. In all, there were ten categories of competitive awards plus a special Appreciation Awards, which were won again by Nan Limited, Black Stars former skipper Charles K. Akonnor, and the maestro Abedi Ayew Pele. First runner-up Gam Enterprise also won Gold in the Growth Award category, and second runner-up Dansam Link also won Silver for the same category, plus Silver for the Target Achievement Award categories as well. Bronze award for Growth went to You84 Enterprise; while Bronze for Target Achievement went to Cletus Sogu and Gold went to Sovereignty Enterprise. The rest of the awards were Best New Product Distributor – Jatrad Enterprise Limited; Best Coverage – APM Ventures; Uni-D Award – Elemawusi Enterprise; Best 5P Store – Gina Kings Enterprise; Best Small Supermarket – Lara Mart; and Best Marble Store – Nassant Ventures. There were two Best Key Account holders’ awards – Melcom Group of Companies for growth management, and Shoprite and Checker for thought leadership. And two individuals, Richard Sekle and Anna Amissah won the Best Distributor Sales Representative and Best Merchandiser of the year awards respectively. The awards event was held at the plush Movenpek Ambassdor Hotel in Accra. David Mureithi is the Managing Director of Unilever Ghana and West Africa, and he said under Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan, the company was supporting the three top winners to undertake their chosen projects in the communities to help improve standard of living in those communities. He said the plan was to reach the underprivileged with facilities that would help improve their health, hygiene, water and sanitation conditions. Mr. Mureithi noted that last year alone, there were 6,000 cholera cases with 80 deaths in Ghana, and that could have been prevented with observation of simple hygienic practices like washing hands before eating, and after visiting the toilet. He said in that light, Unilever has also started providing hygiene stations to schools, institutional latrines, purified water stations and other facilities across country, to help people live a healthier life. The Unilever Boss said beginning from this year the company would introduce a new water purification kit called Purikit unto the market, to help people get better purified water at a price that is way less than what they would pay for the side effects of drinking the kind of water people drink lately. Managing Director of the top award-winning company (Nan Limited), Michael Kofi Gyau told Adom News in 2011 alone he generated GHC19 million for Unilever and that was how he won the award, adding that he looks forward to exceeding that achievement by 25% this year. He attributed the success of the company to the commitment of his 100 strong staff, whom he said, were all treated like part owners of the company and so they work as though they were working for themselves and not for someone else. He appealed to banks to reduce the cost of borrowing so people like him could borrow and expand beyond Ashanti region and provide more jobs for young Ghanaians. The Greater-Accra Regional Distribution Manager at Unilever, Nana Safo Asante also told Adom News the awards were based on excellence in financial records, meeting distribution and financial targets, consistence in distribution and stocking of Unilever products, excellent customer service, motivation of sales men, selling at the right prices and getting customers involved in Unilever promotions, among other things. He said last year, distributors in Ghana made 33% increase in sales, which was the highest in the sub-region, adding that this year they have a target of 25% increase to meet. "We have a target to double our business in Ghana by 2015 but the way things are going we may achieve that target by close of 2013," he said.