One of Sierra Leone’s leading and indigenous financial institutions, Rokel Commercial Bank, has concluded a national debate competition for pupils within the age brackets of 18-25 years at the prestigious Atlantic Hotel, Lumley in Freetown, with the theme ‘Financial Awareness Leading to Financial Inclusion,’ with the strong collaboration and support from the National Debating Association of Sierra Leone.
Deputy Managing Director of RCB, Mr. Emmanuel Borbor, in his opening remarks, noted that they, as a bank, are investing on education in line with President Bio’s Flagship Education project.
He continued that RCB is breaking the traditional boundaries of banking by moving towards the empowerment of our kids whom he noted need education as a critical tool for development.
“Even though we are opening up the space for increased access financial points and also contributing towards other CSR projects, we view education as key and we see this as giving back to the country as an indigenous bank,” Mr. Borbor emphasized.
The debate, he concluded, will be an annual event and the Bank will have to go to the drawing board and identify the gaps in terms of making the event better in 2019.
Managing Director of RCB, Dr. Ekundayo Gilpin, noted that they, at Rokel Commercial Bank, have undertaken this initiative in response to the Central Bank’s dream of pushing for financial inclusion in Sierra Leone.
He continued that, as a bank, they took several approaches in achieving this, including making the bank very visible, undertaking visitations to various academic institutions to offer lectures on financial management, encouraging young pupils to open up accounts in the bank, making part of the new ecosystem and lastly the conduct of the national debating competition.
The effects of these activities, the MD disclosed, were to build confidence among the pupils and increasing the awareness around financial inclusion.
He noted that the RCB is moving forward and will shift its CSR to fully supporting the Free and Quality Education and urged members of the public present to applaud members of RCD and the National Debating Association for successfully executing this task.
George Splisbury, Head of Public Relations and Protocols RCB, told nightwatch that they have been supporting various activities by organizations and institutions around the promotion of education across the country, including the conduct of debates.
He noted that they have started by conducting preliminary individual debating competitions in Bo, Kenema, Kono, Freetown and Makeni; and got winners in all the areas based on individual applications made to represent their districts.
On the 8th December, 2018 the RCB decided to bring all the district qualifiers for a grand final in Freetown and Bombali, Kenema, Kono and the Western Area battled it out in the finals of the competition.
The topic for the final debate was ‘State Banks should adopt general loan conditions for all individuals, MPs, Ordinary Citizens and Senior Government Officials.’
The debate, which was carefully structured and organized by a special planning committee of the RCB, was highly transparent, fair and very neutral with well experienced judges in the areas of debating protocols and procedures and all the results were highly acclaimed and accepted by all representatives.
The Organizing Committee had developed debating topics alongside increasing the awareness of pupils around financial inclusion. They were able to also bring on board key educational stakeholders, such as teachers and university lecturers, to observe as well as provide professional guidance to the entire exercise.
Mahmud Sheriff of Kenema won as the best debater with a price of Le3,000,000 (three million leones ) and a trophy, while Kenema, as a district, emerged as overall winners with a cash prize of Le6,000,000 followed by Bombali, Western Area and Kono respectively.
Many applauded the Bank for venturing into brining back the lost glory of pupils, especially as it relates to public speaking and oratory, which have been lacking in the past decades in our country’s educational system.