National Bank of Malawi (NBM) Plc’s K60 million three-year commitment towards supporting the Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST) Students Endowment Fund has started bearing fruits with K10 million profit made by now.
MUST Vice Chancellor, Address Malata disclosed this on Thursday when they presented a progress report to NBM officials in Blantyre.
According to Malata, so far they have managed to source K2.5 billion for the fund but are targeting K5 billion.
“From the contribution by the National Bank, we invested the money and we are glad to report to them that we are now at K74 million minus the principal cash, which gives us a profit of K10 million that we can use for the scholarships to students. We plan to roll out the scholarships next year targeting the needy students as beneficiaries.”
“In most Universities across the world, endowment funds are a way to go because banking on government funding is always a problem since the funds are not enough. We commend NBM for the support which will help more students in future,” she said.
NBM chief executive officer (CEO), Mcfussy Kawawa expressed satisfaction with the report by MUST saying as a Bank they value the long-term benefits of their support through the Endowment Fund.
“As a Bank we have a Corporate Social Investment (CSI) policy that does support investment in education. We also believe in sustainability, to have something that can have an impact, not today but for years to come. So, we saw this Endowment Fund as an opportunity for us to plant a seed by way of this donation that we know will help the students in the years to come.”
“We believe that the management of the fund is robust. It is also good to hear that there is a governance structure that makes sure that the funds are properly accounted for. We think that is important in ensuring that they achieve the aspirations of the fund,” said Kawawa.
During the event, NBM also handed over the last chunk of K20 million for the last year of their commitment in the Memorandum of Understanding.
