By Foday Moriba Conteh
The United Bank for Africa (UBA) Sierra Leone has on Tuesday 25th May, 2021 joined other countries to celebrate Africa Day 2021during an auspicious event held at its Headquarters in Freetown.
Speaking during the ceremony, Managing Director of UBA Sierra Leone, Usman Isiaka, expressed gratitude that the bank is celebrating adding that the United Bank for Africa is a bank that is meant for all Africans and therefore in that regard they thought it fit to celebrate Africa Day in a special way across all the 20 countries were the bank is operating in Africa.
Underscoring the importance of Africa Day he said it is to show the rich cultural heritage of Africa evident in how members of staff of UBA were culturally dressed to portray the rich culture of Africa furthering that the Africa Day celebration is being observed across all the 20 countries where they do operate.
Usman Isiaka maintained that in order to encourage members of staff of UBA to dress in their traditional attire to showcase their African Culture they decided to award the member of staff putting on the best African attire.
He said the winner of the best African attire that showcases the richness of the African culture will win fifteen Million Leones (15,000,000) and the runner up will bag Ten Million Leones (10,000,000).
He added that they are doing such to show the depth and the originality of the African culture.
The Managing Director added that for the first time the United Bank for Africa (UBA) is celebrating Africa Day 2021 by bringing together global leaders at the 2nd UBA Africa Day Conversations screened live across the continent.
“UBA helps set the debate around Africa’s economic development through its series of “Africa Conversations”, he continued adding that this year the focus is on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the COVID-19 pandemic.
He furthered that leaders emphasized the need for meaningful collaboration between Governments and the private sector as a requirement for the quick recovery of the economy of the African continent during the post COVID-19 period.
The Managing Director revealed that the panel included the President of Liberia, H.E George Weah; United States Senator Chris Coons; the President & Chairman of the Board of Directors of the African Export–Import Bank (AFREXIMBANK), Professor Benedict Okey Oramah; President, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Peter Maurer; and was moderated by the Group Chairman, UBA Plc, Tony O. Elumelu.
Usman Isiaka added that other leading voices that contributed were the Founder, Africa CEO Forum, Amir Ben Yahmed; the Secretary-General of the African Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP), H.E George Chikoti; Administrator, United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Achim Steiner and Donald Kaberuka, the former President of the African Union.
He pointed out that the Conversations concluded with the need to act quickly and effectively, highlighting that Africa has lessons to teach the world in containment but is economically vulnerable.
He revealed that the United Bank for Africa is a leading pan-African financial institution offering banking services to more than twenty million customers globally.
With footprints in 20 African countries and presence globally in the United Kingdom, the USA and France, UBA is connecting people and businesses across Africa through retail, commerce and corporate banking, innovative cross border payments and remittances, trade finance and ancillary banking services.
The event was climaxed with the recitation of a poem by a member of staff of the United Bank for Africa on the topic “Africa to the World”.
