Tullow Spends U.S.$32 Million On Corporate Social Responsibility

By Kingsley Asare

Tullow Ghana Limited (TGL) has spent about $32 million on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and capacity building programmes for the past ten years.

The Social Performance Manager of TGL, Fiifi Enchill who disclosed this at the TGL maiden Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fair in Accra on Thursday said, the projects were in education, skills training and scholarships.

The programme was to bring all the STEM projects implementers together and to showcase the programmes they were doing to promote STEM education in the country.

As part of the programme, Sabre Education, Youth Bridge Foundation, Africa Science Academy, Right to Dream Field Ready highlighted on the project they were implementing to promote STEM education.

Among some of the projects being implemented by the aforementioned non-governmental organisations being funded by TGL are construction of modern kindergarten classroom for fishing communities in the then West Region, capacity building for about 80 Maths and Science teachers in beneficiary regions and provision of scholarship to about 135 from Ashesi University, University of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

Mr Enchill explained that the company's investment in education and skills building and the provisions of scholarship to students at all the levels of education, was to develop the necessary manpower for the oil and gas industry.

That, he said, was crucial for the country to meet the tenets of the Local Content Law, which enjoins companies in the oil and gas industry to use local expert labour force in their operations.

Mr Enchill explained that the TGL STEM programme began in 2016 to promote STEM education in the then Western Region in particular and the country as a whole.

He said all the developed economies did saw massive development on the back of STEM and Ghana must also pursue same to facilitate the development of the country.

Ghana, Mr Enchill observed that Ghana could not continue to rely on foreign manpower to build the economy as the country strives to industrialise and there was the need to build skills of the youth in STEM.

He entreated other companies to join TGL to fund STEM programmes to avoid duplication of projects.

The Communications and Investor Relations Manager of TGL, Dzifa Bampoh in her remarks said the STEM Share programme was "predicated on our belief in collaboration to achieve success in STEM education".

She said the promotion of STEM was in line with the objective of the company to build the necessary manpower for the oil and gas industry for the country and the entire world.

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