Elano Investment Limited manages the 7.5 percent equity holding of the host communities in the highly successful Indorama-Eleme Petrochemicals Limited near Port Harcourt, Rivers State. Now, Elano has rescued 111 undergraduates from the host communities with bursary awards.
In the month of May, 2018, the company under its chairman, the chief, Gomba Okanje, kick-started the first leg of its bursary project and commenced disbursement of the sum ₦22.2million to 111 undergraduates in various institutions of higher learning in Nigeria for their 2018/19 academic year.
To critics, the magnanimity of the Okanje-led Elano Investments Limited is a demonstration of CSR approach anchored on sustainability, stake holding and partnership on principles that reject anything to the contrary.
Okanje at the award ceremony presented a cheque of ₦200,000.00 to each of the beneficiaries, announcing that, “the bursary is one of several educational based initiatives funded by Elano and it will be an annual grant designed to support students, especially the indigent undergraduates drawn from the host communities of IEPCL and other communities in Eleme”.
In his speech at the LA Kings Event Centre, Stadium Road, Port-Harcourt, the Elano chairman said the company, “is keen to promoting human capital development and has embarked on the bursary payment exercise to ameliorate the financial hardship faced by students in the pursuit of their studies at various institutions of higher learning across nation”.
The grant, according to Okanje, would go a long way to helping the benefiting students in the area of school fees payment and other educational needs while he urged the beneficiaries to take their studies seriously and judiciously utilise the grants; “It’s not for us to see anyone become a school drop-out due to financial constraint. Therefore, Elano will pay bursary annually to students t encourage those who are in school, especially the indigent ones in the host communities.”
The Elano CEO also listed some of the educational programmes of the company which include sponsorship of its students to study master’s degree abroad; training of another set of students at the maritime Academy, Oron, Akwa-Ibom State; and skills acquisition training of some other group at the University of Port-Harcourt.
Other community based projects embarked upon by Elano company include construction of several internal roads in Eleme and the on-going free Heath medical Care Programme that has received a basketful of commendations from the poor and middle-class Eleme men and women with one ailment or the other but financially handicapped to access adequate medical treatment.
The Chairman of the Education Committee of Elano Investments Limited, the professor, Walter Ollor, said the beneficiaries of the bursary awards were picked from a competitive process in which the current performance of the student in their institutions was considered. Each of the beneficiaries, he said will get ₦200,000.
He said Elano decided to invest in human capital development in the hope that the benefits will long outlive the beneficiaries and generally lift the quality of life of the people.
He urged the beneficiaries to take their studies seriously as subsequent annual awards will be based on their academic performances.
The Deputy Managing Director of Wider Perspectives Limited, consultants for the scheme, Edughom Hanson, urged the recipients to make the most of the opportunities that the bursary will offer them.
The President of Elano Youths Council, Sunday Agba Ngofa, congratulated the Board of Elano investments Limited for finally rolling out the bursary scheme.
“Having to go to school when you do not have to struggle to pay your fees is a great relief”, Ngofa said, as he advised the beneficiaries to be committed to their studies.
There is nothing more fulfilling for parents than to see their children achieve great heights in foreseeable future that is dependent on sound, qualitative education. Elano Investments Limited believes in corporate social Responsibility [CSR] as a global strategy aimed at strengthening developmental bond between cooperate organisations and their host communities. So it is not surprising that it weaved its own in socio-economic web of infrastructures- education, health, and scholarship, among others.
Every effort made by cooperate organisation in their CSR initiative in Rivers State to contribute positively to the lives of their host communities is considered as complimentary to the efforts of both Federal and State Government.
In Nigeria, the educational sector is still struggling hard to free itself from under funding and massive unemployment which is why Hon Ben Bruce, Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria attested this fact in one of his scripts he reads out on Television and Radio that not less than 4million Nigerian Children are out of schools mainly due to poverty.
Though poverty is not peculiar to Nigeria, but it is the most dangerous stumbling block against children of poor parents or families to have access to education even from the foundation or primary level.
That informs clarion calls to other cooperate organisations to complement the efforts of Government by contributing their quota to the educational thirst of the citizens especially the indigents in their domains on the belief that the future of these youths will be shaped through capacity building.
A cross-section of stakeholders of the Indoroma Eleme Petrochemicals Limited hosts Communities commended Okanje and his company, noting that Elano like Nigeria LNG in Bonny Rivers State, strategically conceives and implements projects at local level that positively impact the lives of citizens, and urged the management to remain focused on educational and human capital development as areas of special significance to the rural poor host communities.
Ignatius Chukwu & Godwin Egba, Port Harcourt
