The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) is proactively expanding its social responsibilities through a new foundation that will be functional in few months, according to the Bank.
Health, education, environmental protection and preservation and other social responsibilities will be the major areas through which the bank intends to strengthen its social intervention.
Speaking to ENA, Promotion and Brand Manager of the Bank Legesse Tiko said charity named as “CBE Foundation” will further strengthen the bank’s support for the society by allocating operational budget every year.
He elaborated that the foundation will reinforce the bank’s interventions on the overall development endeavors in addition to its work on facilitating banking services.
“It will be established as a separate entity from the bank according to the rule and regulation of the country and it will work by taking all social works that the bank has been conducting up to now”, he said.
He added that the bank has also endorsed the establishment of the foundation with a purpose to address the bottlenecks and problems in coordinated and integrated manner with the government.
To date, the bank has been engaging in various sectors including health, education, social and environmental protection, he elaborated.
Legesse noted that bank has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Health to build health care centers in all regions of the country.
The bank has already provided 70 million birr budget for the construction of 9 health centers and it’s expected that the centers can afford services for 270,000 people per day.
So far, a health centre in Gambella Regional State has completed and transferred to the region’s health bureau, he indicated.
He noted that the construction of two other health centers in Oromia and Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Regional States will be completed in this fiscal year.
Furthermore, the construction of health centers in the other six regional sates is expected to complete around the mid of the coming year, he added.
Health Infrastructure Development Director at the Ministry of Health, Engineer Tadesse Yemane said that construction of the health centers is going on in line with the government aspiration to make health institutions available for the society.
“The aim of constructing the institutions is to make healthcare accessible to rural communities, increase the health coverage in each regional states and improving the quality of healthcare services”, he said.
He added that it will help to improve the accessibility of health institution as many societies, especially addressing health need of expectant and lactating mothers who face challenges due to the lack of health centre in their areas.