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COVID-19: MTN Floats Y'ello Hope Package To Support Virus Containment Efforts

World of Business	2728 VIEWS
World of Business
2728 VIEWS

Friday, April 10, 2020 / 6:08 PM / By MTN Nigeria / Header Image Credit: @MTNNG

In the past weeks, corporations and individuals have rallied round the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) as the nation battles to curb the spread of the global Coronavirus pandemic. The NCDC is coordinating its tracking and identification process through the Surveillance, Outbreak Response Management and Analysis (SORMAs) tool as well as the employment of precautionary measures.

Meanwhile the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in collaboration with several private sector organisations formed a coalition against COVID-19 (CACOVID) to raise funds required to fight the pandemic. Contributions to the fund from both organisations and and high net worth individuals (HNIs) as at April 1, 2020 stood at over N15 billion.

In a similar move, MTN Nigeria unveiled its Y'ello Hope Package and announced over N2 billion worth of support to various government and health agencies.

The Cost of Intervention

According to an official media statement from the company, the first phase of the company's intervention will address the following efforts;

Over N500 million worth of airtime, data and analytics, through the Nigerian Governors' Forum (NGF) in support to State governments to facilitate communications during travel restrictions.
Connecting medical personnel: Over N1.4 billion worth of airtime, data and devices for connectivity support to frontline health agencies including NCDC.
Connecting customers with essential health information: Free data access to be used to access websites with validated information on COVID.
Up to 300 free SMS per month for all our subscribers, ensuring they can communicate with loved ones;
MTN has partnered with Ayoba, a messaging OTT provider, to grant free daily data access to its subscribers.
Free money transfers using the Momo Agent Network from Y'ello Digital Financial Services.

An attempt to calculate the monetary value of the above and the cost to the company using the least possible figures showed a total sum of N62,097,966,440 (Sixty-Two billion, ninety-seven million, nine hundred and sixty-six thousand, four hundred and forty naira only).

A breakdown of the MTN intervention programme shows the following service delivery costs and hardware deployment commitments (see table 1 below):

Table 1 MTN's COVID-19 Intervention Programme

Item	Rate	Amount

1200 Sim cards	100 Naira	N120,000
38 Toll free lines for 3 months	11k/ sec for 3 months (calculated at 6 hours per day for 80 days)	N7,223,040
38 Smart Feature Phones	N8000	N304,000
10 MTN Mifi devices	N12,000 each	N120,000
Free Cash2Cash Transaction fees on MTN Mobile Money for one month	800,000 users at N100 per transaction	N80,000,000
Nigeria Governors' Forum	Airtime, data and analytics	N500,000,000
Lagos State Government	89 Smart feature phones at N8000 each	N 7,120,000
Lagos State Government	89 Sim Cards at N100 each	N8900
Lagos State Government	10,000 airtime for 89 phones for 3 months	N2,670,000
Lagos State Government	3GB data at N1500 for 89 phones for 3 months	N400,500
300 free SMS to every MTN user for 3 months	N1200 for 17 million customers (25% of total subscribers) for 3 months	N61,000,000,000
MTN Foundation	N500 million for medical needs
Total		N62,097,966,440

Source: MTN Nigeria

Preparing For The Next Big Move

According to the Chairman, MTN Nigeria, Ernest Ndukwe, these figures represent the first phase of the support targeted at interventions the company is best positioned to deliver. "This first phase of support is targeted at the interventions that we are best positioned to deliver at this stage. As the situation evolves, we are fully committed to deepening and extending these commitments in order to provide all the support we can to the government, and to our people. It is only by working together, that we can overcome this challenge. I would like to take this opportunity to recognise the collaborative spirit with which all stakeholders are working to contain COVID-19".

MTN Nigeria also pledged to contribute N1 billion to the CACOVID fund.

Earlier in the year, delegates from the MTN Group paid a courtesy visit to President Muhammadu Buhari and promised to invest the sum of $1.6billion in the Nigerian economy, which is approximately N580 billion over a three-year period. The Group Chairman, Mcebisi Jonas said the MTN Group has the utmost commitment to investing in Nigeria, from its operations in the country to strengthening its network and systems.