The vision of the CEO of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) to consolidate sustainable Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies in the Corporation’s business model has been further boosted by the commencement of a week-long tour.

Opoku Ahweneeh-Danquah is to commission several of GNPC’s completed infrastructure projects across five regions - Central, Ashanti, Bono, Eastern and Greater Accra.

Starting from the Central Region, GNPC has, through its CSR arm, the GNPC Foundation, handed over six completed projects to some beneficiary schools and a community in the region.

Leading the team, Dr Dominic Kwesi Eduah, Executive Director of the Foundation, on behalf of the GNPC CEO, handed over keys to two sanitary facilities at Ghana National College in Cape Coast to help alleviate the school’s challenge with hygiene and sanitation posed by inadequate infrastructure with the school’s current toilet facility stretched by the sheer number of students it serves.

The Headmaster of the School, Joseph Ato Sarpong, expressing his appreciation, thanked GNPC for the support, adding that the donation couldn’t have been timelier as it coincides with the school’s 75th-anniversary celebration.

At Ekumfi Abor, the Chief of the area, Nana Amoasi, received keys to a new 12-unit sanitary facility to help solve the community’s long-standing issue of open defecation and its attendant health problems within the locality.

Nana Edumadze Forson, speaking on behalf of the Chief, thanked GNPC and promised to put the facility to good use.

The Assembly Member for the Abor electoral area, Dominic Kwame Nyame, said the project will serve its intended purpose of providing many community members that are without befitting toilet facilities the opportunity to now access a more humane structure to curb the unhealthy, indiscriminate practices which pose several health risks.

Making a further stop at Besease Senior High School at Ajumako, also in the Central region, a five-chamber Science Laboratory with an ICT Centre was handed over to the school to facilitate effective teaching and learning.

Francis Afari-Sackey, Headmaster of the school, commended GNPC for its reliability and foresight in investing in schools and by extension, Ghana’s future.

He said the lab would improve the quality of the education process at the school with its new opportunity to be more practical.

Climaxing activities in the region, a 160-bed capacity girls’ dormitory with a 12-seater sanitary unit was handed over to Mando Secondary High Technical School at a short ceremony chaired by Osagyefo Kwame Akonu X, the Paramount Chief of Enyan Abasa Traditional Council who is also the Vice President of Central Regional House of Chiefs.

He tagged GNPC as a development partner of the region given the national oil company’s exceptional levels of investment made in the region.

Chief of Mando, Nana Okomfo Afful X, also expressed his gratitude for the facilities and assured his personal oversight to ensure their proper maintenance.

Advising the students, the District Chief Executive of Ajumako, Ransford Nyarko, charged them to take full advantage of the improvements in the infrastructure to be more studious as education offers the surest path to success in life.

Expressing her relief for the facilities and appreciation to GNPC, the Headmistress of the school, Roseline A. Sackey said the school’s authorities could finally take a restful pause after years of enduring sleepless nights navigating their infrastructural deficits in an attempt to improve performance standards and assured that the facilities would be well maintained.

Dr Eduah, on his part, reiterated GNPC’s commitment to ensuring that every region gets its fair share of Ghana’s oil revenue through the Foundation’s tailored social intervention programmes aimed at improving communities and people.

Highlighting some key GNPC-funded projects that have benefited the region, he said the national oil company, by numbers, has over 70 projects, both completed and ongoing, across the several Metropolitan/Municipal/District Assemblies in the central region. These are classroom blocks, science laboratories, dormitory facilities, sanitary blocks, Astroturf facilities and water (boreholes) projects.

He added that the region has 45 borehole water projects, a total of fifteen six-Unit classroom blocks, ten sanitary facilities, two artificial soccer turfs with floodlighting and wire fencing, a science laboratory and a Girls' dormitory with many students from the region also benefitting from the Corporation’s scholarship scheme while several others are in line to receive support and start-up tools to begin their entrepreneurial journeys after undergoing training and certification under GNPC’s Skilled Artisans Project.  

From the Central Region, the GNPC will, in the coming days, continue its tours to hand over other completed facilities in Ashanti, Bono, Eastern and Greater Accra.