By Our Reporter
The Chief Executive Officer of MTN-UGANDA, Mr. Wim Vanhelleputte has handed over 3 Brand new Nissan Hard body pickups to H.E. The President, The Prime Minister & the Covid-19 task force. The three cars that are meant to ease transport issues in the Covid-19 Pandemic were handed over on Friday morning at Kololo Airstrip in Kampala.
The three Pick-ups, together with the ugx.220m that MTN contributed towards National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) and ugx.297m donated to the Uganda Red Cross Society (URCS) bring MTN’s contribution in the fight against covid19 to over 1 billion Uganda shillings.
MTN’s contribution to NWSC was geared towards providing water to the people living in water-stressed areas around Kampala in a bid to promote hand washing as one of the ways to prevent the spread of the deadly Coronavirus while the contribution to URCS was to aid in their duties of combating the deadly virus respectively.
Apart from enabling its 12 million customers to send money for free and help family and friends to take care of themselves amidst this devastating pandemic, the telecom is also making it possible for people to work from home and keep earning by providing affordable internet. The internet bundle dubbed “work from home” is meant to promote the concept of ‘social distancing’ to further prevent the spread of the desolating Coronavirus.
MTN is further supporting government’s sensitization drive by availing free media channel space (radio, tv, social media, sms, call center IVR platform) to promote Ministry of Health’s sensitization messages. The Telecom also zero rated all its learning platforms to support school-going children to study online from home without data.
Additionally, MTN has also offered some of its call center space to ministry of health officials to take calls from the public regarding Covid-19 emergencies and information.
To facilitate the flow of information, MTN Uganda has also zero rated Ministry of Health and World Health Organization (WHO) websites so the public can access information about the virus at no charge. They include www.who.int and www.health.go.ug.