By Egufe Yafugborhi – Port Harcourt

GARDEN City Advancement Awards (GACAAWARDS) on Monday unveiled nominees and announced opening of voting to the public by end of September to pick the 2021 awardees for 7th edition slated to hold 7 November at the Aztech Arcum, Port Harcourt, Rivers state.

Governing Council of the excellence promotion body at a press conference in Port Harcourt, Monday, declared ‘Promoting Growth and Investment in the Niger Delta (Key Success Factors)’ as the theme for the November event it termed “Heroic Edition”.

Robinson Koyoyo, Principal Partner, GACAAWARDS, explained that, “The award uniquely identifies and celebrates individuals, corporate organizations, private or public, that have been outstanding in championing the course of excellence through capacity building, job creation, community development in service delivery and purposeful leadership.

“This platform brings together distinguished guests every year to celebrate noteworthy achievements in all fields of human endeavor and setting standards for excellence, while promoting peace and development in the Niger Delta.”

Group Executive Director, Ovunda Rhaj Oti, said, “The theme this year was picked to highlight the need for implementation of policies that will promote growth and re-investment to surmount setbacks provoked by the pandemic.

“Individuals and corporate organizations at the award dinner will be encouraged to consistently improve on the standard of business operations and efforts towards developing a more economically viable society.”

Awards Screening Committee Secretary, Obinichi Ugo, said, “This year’s nominations were well over two thousand within and outside the Niger Delta which made the screening process more tedious than previous editions.

“And this was done under the strict supervision of credible external auditors, all nominees going through rigorous screening before they could awarded the Platinum Honors for their exceptional scorecards.

“Some categories are honorary, some up for voting. After due diligence on all nominations, nominees in voting categories are published on our official website for voting. Voting commences 30th of September and closes 10th  October 2021 by 11:59pm. The voting public as always should visit www.gacaaward.org/vote.”