#National News

Karpowership donates 5,000 facemasks

Dec 17, 2020, 12:23 PM | Article By: Omar Bah

Karpowership, a Turkish energy company operating in The Gambia  donated 5,000 facemasks to the Fatou Bah-Barrow Foundation (FaBB) Tuesday afternoon.

In presenting the items at a ceremony held at the First Lady’s Office at State House, Karpowership country manager, Yankuba Mamburay said the donation was made in response to a request from FaBB for facemasks for onward delivery to schoolchildren in the country.

The distribution of the facemasks, he said, was scheduled to take place at the time of the reopening of schools but noted that the preventative masks were still needed, as the coronavirus was still prevalent.

Mr Mamburay said his company was pleased to once again collaborate with the First Lady’s Foundation as whatever was given was for onward transmission to the Gambian people.

He recalled that that since the outbreak of the pandemic earlier this year, Karpowership had among other things donated five ventilators worth six million dalasis to the government, sugar, rice and oil to communities in Lower River and North Bank regions, the police and other institutions including FaBB.

The Karpowership manager disclosed that the government extended the power purchase contract with his company for a further two years in May and thanked the government and Nawec for giving them the opportunity to operate in The Gambia.

He said although power generation is the core business of Karpowership, the company has been among the most engaged in the country in dispensing its corporate social responsibility.

Receiving the donated masks, Fatou Ceesay, a member of the FaBB board, thanked Karpowership for what she described as “timely and significant” donation.

She observed that although no ‘huge spikes’ in the cases of Covid-19 were recorded after the reopening of schools, the masks would go a long way in protecting schoolchildren in the country.

Boxes containing the masks were later formally handed over to a much-pleased First Lady Fatou Bah-Barrow.

Karpowership, which is part of the Karadeniz Group started operations in The Gambia on 2nd May 2018.