By Michael Eboh

Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, on Sunday, disclosed that the oil and gas industry coalition against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, that it is spearheading, has donated medical consumables, equipment and an ambulance to the Kano State government, to support the state’s fight against the pandemic.

In a statement in Abuja, NNPC also stated that despite the supply chain constraints involved in simultaneous nationwide delivery and distribution of medical items at this period, the coalition was determined to extend the industry intervention to all states of the federation, with Abuja, Rivers and states in the South-West having benefitted from the initiative.

NNPC noted that the medical items were presented to the Kano State Governor, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, on behalf of NNPC and its partners— Chevron Nigeria Limited (upstream) and Bovas & Company Limited (downstream).

It listed the items donated to the state to include a Toyota ambulance, two full kits ventilators, one smith RescuePac ventilator for emergency and transport, 10 pulse oximetres, 10,000 nose masks and 5,000 Nitrile examination gloves.

Others, the NNPC said are 250 facemasks, surgical splash/fluid resistance face shield, 250 N95 respiratory valve, 100 PPE overall full kits, 100 PPE shoe covers, 2,000 PPE disposable caps and 500 Medimec surgical facemasks.

Speaking during the presentation, Sylva stated that the items were part of the $58 million (N21 billion) intervention initiative by the oil and gas industry, while he expressed optimism that they would go a long way to stemming the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the state.

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Sylva explained that the initiative covers three areas: provision of medical consumables, deployment of logistics and in-patient support system and delivery of medical infrastructure, disclosing that donations were outside the regular Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, initiative routinely deployed by NNPC and the participating companies.

He said all commitments under the scheme were collected in kind through a clear, well-established and transparent governance framework.

“I commend NNPC, the donor companies and other participants in this initiative for standing up to be counted at these trying times,” Sylva stated.

Also speaking at the occasion, Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mallam Mele Kyari, hinted that the oil and gas industry was planning to build permanent and sustainable medical infrastructure in each of the nation’s geo-political zones.

He said:  “We have a plan to deliver permanent medical infrastructure to every state of the Federation and a specific intervention in the six geo-political zones. We are selecting 14 locations to construct the permanent infrastructure.”

Kyari added that as socially-responsible corporate citizens, the oil and gas industry operators were focused on bequeathing some of the finest medical infrastructure that would outlive the COVID-19 pandemic.

On his part, Governor Ganduje, who lauded the Oil and Gas Initiative to combat COVID-19, said the intervention would go a long way in fighting the pandemic as well as complement the state government’s efforts.

The governor stated that the state had three functional isolation centres and that it has commenced distribution of palliatives to 50,000 households in the state.

Led by the NNPC, the oil and gas intervention against the COVID-19 pandemic which donated to Kano has membership drawn from international oil companies, IOCs; indigenous petroleum producers, major oil marketers, crude oil and productst traders, depot owners and petroleum products marketers.

Vanguard