SURE KAMHUNGA

Published: 2010/03/05 07:45:29 AM

ABSA , SA’s largest retail bank, yesterday said it planned to play a more “relevant” role in ensuring it complemented the government’s efforts to uplift the poor, and would continue to allocate at least 1% of its headline earnings to social investment programmes.

Absa’s recently appointed executive director in charge of corporate affairs and sustainability, Venete Klein, said the bank wanted to ensure its support was “aligned to the country’s social needs”.

Klein said the bank would be more focused on projects that had a wider impact.

Last year, Absa spent about R50m on its social investment programme and estimated expenditure could be R35m this year, she said.

“We want to be more relevant to the government and SA as a whole, and we see our role as being partners in the development of the country.”

Klein, who is one of five new executives appointed to Absa’s executive committee by CEO Maria Ramos, identified unemployment, health and education as some of SA’s pressing social needs which the private sector should continue to support.

SA faces a crippling unemployment crisis, aggravated last year by the first recession in 17 years, which added an estimated 1-million more to the ranks of the unemployed.

Source: Business Day