Nigeria’s premium engineering construction company, Julius Berger Nig. Plc, has intensified its response in the fight against Covid-19 with distribution of food palliatives to residents in Lagos, Shagamu and Abuja.
The effort codenamed “Food for our Community” was sequel to sever previous donations carried out as part of the Company’s CSR campaign, which is aimed at providing needed aid to communities amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Items for the relief packages, which include bags of rice and various cooking supplies have been purchased from local markets in a bid to support local traders, also.
It would be recalled that the company has in the last month rolled out series of activities to support the Federal, State and Local Governments. These activities include:
THE GENESIS OF JULIUS BERGER CSR POERATIONS
The citizen-oriented Julius Berger CSR operation as well as the company’s strong support for government efforts in Nigeria’s fight to contain the Covid-19 pandemic started on Saturday, April 2, 2020 when Julius Berger Nigeria Plc mobilized its equipment to support the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) in carrying out a city-wide sanitation campaign to fumigate and decontaminate the Federal Capital Territory. As hygienic conditions are essential to protecting human health during all infectious disease outbreaks, including the Covid-19 outbreak, this campaign remains ongoing. Julius Berger Nigeria Plc says it will continue to provide the needed equipment and key personnel as consecutive decontamination efforts are rolled out in key locations central to containment of the pandemic.
On Thursday, April 9, 2020, Julius Berger Nigeria Plc followed up with a donation of 48 hospital beds, including mattresses and 10 partitioning frames to a Covid-19 isolation hospital in Abuja.
On Friday, April 10, 2020, Julius Berger Nigeria Plc, in recognition of the need for proactive medical logistical efficiency and effectiveness by frontline health institutions and health workers in the war against Covid-19, donated an ambulance vehicle to the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Gwagwalada. The ambulance is intended to serve as a key resource to help the movement of patients to and from the University Teaching Hospital, which has been nominated by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) as a Covid-19 isolation and treatment centre. Julius Berger’s Managing Director, Prof. Bissallah A. Ekele. Engr. Dr. Richter stated that ‘the urgent necessity to safeguard and protect the good health and lives of the citizens and residents of Nigeria informed the decision of the company to donate the ambulance to the hospital’. Prof. Bissalah A. Ekele, the CMD of UATH, thanked the company for its timely intervention with the donation of the ambulance, which he said was “critically needed to tackle the corona virus pandemic, and thanked Julius Berger Nigeria Plc “for its show of sensitivity to the urgent and critical need of the Nigerian society and its people, particularly at a time like this.”
Also on the same day, Friday April 10, to aid the Akwa Ibom State Government in the donation of rice to its citizens, a convoy of 10 Julius Berger tippers carried loads of rice for transport for various locations across the state, for distribution to Local government Areas (LGA’s) across the state. The distribution was made in time for the 2020 Easter Holiday Weekend.
On Sunday, April 12, 2020, Julius Berger Nigeria Plc, together with some of its local partners operating in the Lagos region, including KLEENOL, DFortune, German Tech and Viprone formed a Covid-19 Response Team, which was deployed for the disinfecting and fumigating of areas identified as critical by the Director of Sanitation, Dr. Hassan Sanuth, including markets, highways, bus stops and pedestrian bridges.
On Thursday, April 16, 2020, Julius Berger Nigeria Plc further donated 48 beds for hospitals, including mattresses and partitioning frames to the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital (UATH) in Gwagwalada in addition to the Ambulance earlier donated. The contribution was made to further support the hospital with needed resources to care for patients. Made from high-grade aluminium parts, the beds were manufactured in Nigeria by Abumet Nigeria Limited, Julius Berger’s aluminium and glass processing subsidiary. Abumet converted its production lines and capacities at short notice for the timely production of the beds. Efforts were carried out in conjunction with Julius Berger’s AFP furniture production, which also delivered part of the components for the beds.
Julius Berger Nigeria Plc in continuation of its sincere and unrelenting CSR efforts in the fight to contain the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, has again committed itself to providing more food palliatives to the residents of FCT who are under the World Health Organization Covid-19 containment procedural lockdown for the time being.
Julius Berger’s strong and continuing CSR response against the spread of the corona virus remains rooted in the company’s operational philosophy of irreducible protection of humans and the environment. “The fight against the dangerous Covid-19 pandemic and its threat to human safety is a fight that must be won”, said Engr. Dr. Lars Richter, the Managing Director of Julius Berger Nigeria Plc.