The President and Chairman of
Board of the African Export –Im-
port Bank, (AFREXIM- Bank),
His Excellency, Prof Benedict Oramah,
has commended SIGNIS-Africa for or-
ganizing a successful Congress in Addis
Ababa last year. He made the commen-
dation when he received in audience
the President of SIGNIS-Africa, Rev.
Fr.(Prof) Walter C. Ihejirika who led a
delegation to the Corporate Headquar-
ters of the Bank in Cairo, Egypt.
Presenting an address, Fr. Ihejirika in-
formed Prof Oramah that their visit is
to express gratitude to him for partici-
pating in the SIGNIS-Africa Congress,
noting that his presence and paper pres-
entation added great value to the gath-
ering.
Going further, the SIGNIS-Africa
President said: “We invited you to our
Congress last year because we noticed
that we share with your bank the com-
mon zeal of transforming the social life
of Africa. We noticed the impact which
AFREXIM Bank has made in unlocking
the tremendous human and natural cap-
itals which God has endowed Africa. So,
our intention was to let you have a first-
hand knowledge of our Association and
see her as a possible associate in your
transformative work in Africa.”
He expressed the delight of his As-
sociation at the recent announcement
made by President Oramah in Kigali
that AFREXIM Bank is setting aside a
$500-million envelope to support the
production and trade of African cultural
and creative products over the next two
years.
Fr. Prof Ihejirika expressed the desire
of SIGNIS-Africa to partner with the
bank to enable young people benefit
from this initiative..
“We wish to let you know that
SIGNIS-Africa is a strong player in the
creative industry”, he said. “Our mem-
bers are actively engaged in the pro-
duction and circulation of communica-
tion-based cultural products, including
films, music, digital software and hard-
ware. We also promote cultural creativ-
ity through training workshops, espe-
cially for young people; presentation of
awards of excellence in cultural and me-
dia festivals…. We are requesting, Sir, if it
is possible, that you endow a small frac-
tion of the fund to help nurture and pro-
mote cultural creativity among young
people and those living in rural areas. If
you entrust SIGNIS-Africa with the re-
sponsibility of overseeing this fund, we
assure you that you will be amazed at the
result you will get.”
Responding, President Oramah
thanked Fr. Professor Ihejirika for his
visit. He explained that AFEXIM-Bank
functions as an international pub-
lic-private partnership whose purpose
is to accelerate the growth of trade in
Africa. He expressed new cultural
creativity portfolio has generated high
interest from many quarters including
happiness that the Africans in the dias-
pora. He outlined the modalities being
worked out towards implementing the
project, among which is the establish-
ment of small cooperatives through
which marginal people can have access
to funding. He expressed the hope that
the aspect of the cooperative could be an
area where SIGNIS, as a faith-based or-
ganization with strong base at the grass
root can play a role. He promised that
SIGNIS-Africa’s request will be taken
into consideration as the details of im-
plementing the portfolio are worked out.
