By Abisola THOMPSON
The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has donated 1.5 million dollars to support the relief effort to the victims of Tropical Cyclone Idai.
Tropical Cyclone Idai is one of the worst tropical cyclones on record to affect Africa and the Southern Hemisphere as a whole.
The long-lived storm caused catastrophic damage in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, leaving more than 700 people dead and hundreds more are missing.
Afreximbank’s President, Prof. Benedict Oramah, disclosed this in a statement signed by the bank’s Head of Media, Mr Obi Emekekwue on Thursday in Abuja.
Oramah said the Bank’s Board of Directors, while approving the relief package, said the funds would be distributed across the three countries based on the scale of damage they suffered.
He said Afreximbank decided to act on the tragedy, given the scale of the devastation brought about by the tropical cyclone.
According to him, the death toll is expected to exceed 1,000, while the cyclone has affected at least 2.5 million people.
Oramah said the funds would be disbursed through the national relief agencies of the three countries as they were well-placed to deploy them to the most critical areas of need.
“In addition to the official donation, Afreximbank staff members have launched an initiative to make voluntary contributions to support the relief effort.
“Such donations will be collected and forwarded to the affected countries.
“Afreximbank hopes that by acting, many other African banks and corporations, some of which are its clients, will be encouraged to also contribute to the relief effort,” the President said.
Oramah said the bank’s Board of Directors would also send missions to the affected countries to assess the potential for deploying its programmes and facilities in support of the three countries coming out of crisis.
He explained that it was to ameliorate the consequences of events of this nature that Afreximbank launched its Food Emergency Contingent Trade Financing Facility.
This, he added, emphasised the urgent need to rapidly deploy the product across that continent.
TBI Africa said the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Afreximbank has a history of intervening in support of African countries in times of crisis.
In November 2014, the Bank contributed one million dollars to the effort to combat the outbreak of the Ebola virus disease, which affected several countries in West Africa.
