By Okhide Em’ya David
Contrary to the wildly held beliefs of grave hostilities between Okomu Oil Palm Company, Plc. and its host communities, the Oil Palm giant recently presented seventy seven checks of ninety thousand naira each for Bursary Awards and Skills Acquisition Funds to students from the area.
The Company also held a one day lecture for Leaders and Representatives of Host Communities on “Communication/Social Dialogue in Community Relationship.”
Managing Director, Okomu Oil Palm Company, Plc., Dr. Graham Hefer while addressing Participants and beneficiaries of the various bursary awards/skills acquisition funds thanked the Communities for their cooperation in the outgoing year and sued for its sustenance, saying productivity is better enhanced in a convivial atmosphere.
Hefer said Okomu Oil Palm Plc instituted the bursary awards for under graduates and skills acquisition funds ten years ago, noting that this year’s series is very unique having survived grave challenges posed by COVID 19 to Humanity, especially in Nigeria where the #EndSARS riots dwarfed the burden of the virus which had threatened to annihilate mankind globally.
The CMD Okomu Oil Palm Company appealed to the host communities to take the company as their own and partner with it to fulfill its developmental obligations to them and their children.
He urged the beneficiaries of the bursary awards /skills acquisition funds to make the best and purposeful use of the training opportunities and become good ambassadors of their communities and the company so that all key stakeholders will be encouraged to sustain the project.
Hefer pledged to foster cordial relationship between the Company and the people, disclosing that they have also executed thousands of projects including boreholes, construction and rehabilitation of School buildings, donations of vast school books and other learning materials; construction and equipment of health centers, renovation and equipment of Town Halls as well as provision of school buses.
He said quantities of palliatives were also distributed during the COVID 19 Pandemic.
Some of the beneficiaries, including Lawrence Kassandra Ekinadose, Kelly Erimiator, Sydney Ewansiah, Akigbe Joseph, of the bursary awards and skills acquisition who could not hide their joy, expressed gratitude firstly to Okomu oil palm Plc. and leaders of the host communities who painstakingly screened them for the scholarship .
A beneficiary, who has obtained a degree in Computer Programming, Ilokhoria Monday told Journalists that but for “the Okomu intervention education scholarship he would not have known the four walls of a Tertiary Institution and asked that the project be sustained.
On their parts, some parents and guardians of the benefiting Students and artisans also commended the company and representatives of the host communities, for initiating the Scholarship and sustaining it for ten years.
He noted that in the near future, Okomu communities will be turned into a territory for industrial manpower hub where those being trained today will become giant players both in public and organized entrepreneurship sectors either as employers of labor or providing the much needed technical knowhow for overall development of the Nation.
In a lecture titled, “communication/social dialogue in community– company relationship ” a resource person , Mr. Kingsley Ehioghae established that ” diverse challenges exist for both the organization and communities to achieving their goal of sustainability,” adding that understanding of the reputation of the organization in particular within their neighboring communities is of vital importance for both communities and the organization.
Ehioghae said from the company’s perspective, the ability to link sustainable development to financial success is key to fostering good communication with the Communities.
He subsumed that from the community’s perspective the enhanced understanding by organization of the community’s sustainability issues and their impacts, especially with regard to competitiveness will provide the importance for company to improve practices within its neighboring Communities.
Representatives of the host communities were also tutored on the values and importance of the high conservative areas within the Okomu oil Palm farm by the HSE department headed by Mt Mikel George.
The session examined the vast hectares of land dedicated to natural conservation and the regular process to unconditionally protect their habitants both animal, plants and land nature for sustainable ecology, preservation of plant species, for medicinal needs as herbs.
Other needs for the conservation projects are cultural practices, shrines and ancestral worships.
Highlights of the program was presentation of the checks to the students.
