If you only had 24 hours at PHC’s beautiful Lokutu site, what would you be able to see? During a visit from our investors on December 8-9, PHC showed our guests that the answer is: everything! In just one short day, the investor delegation―which included our majority shareholder Kuramo Capital as well as visitors from Washington University and Keffi Group―were able to experience all of the aspects of PHC’s business and gain a better understanding of our work, our company, and our vision to create shared prosperity through agribusiness. Some of the activities our investors participated in included:
Welcome and dialogue with the chief of a local community: Upon arrival in Lokutu, our investors shared a meal with several PHC staff as well as the chief of the Mwingi group, the local community group which hosts PHC’s main offices in our Lokutu concession. The chief of the Mwingi group wished our visitors a warm welcome, and emphasized the positive relationships between the Mwingi group and PHC. Following the meal, our investors also participated in a brief overview of PHC’s current activities, where they were able to ask questions and discuss with various PHC staff.
Tree Planting: Tree planting, which is critical to the sustainability of our business, has been deprioritized in recent years of PHC operations. Now under new management, PHC is looking forward to launching a tree replanting program in all of our concessions, which will aim to fully utilize previous oil palm planting areas that are currently uncultivated and unused, ensuring PHC’s continued growth without deforestation. We invited our guests to help us kick off the tree replanting program by giving each visitor the chance to plant their own oil palm sapling at the location where the program will begin in March 2022.
Lokutu Hospital Visit: One of the most fundamental ways that PHC supports our staff and the communities surrounding our concessions is by providing access to quality healthcare services. Across our three sites, we have four hospitals, 18 dispensaries, and four health centers that provide all workers and their families with free healthcare. As our facilities are often the only accessible quality medical care in the rural areas where we operate, PHC’s medical services also provide critical healthcare support to local communities. In Lokutu, for example, 90% of this year’s births at the hospital came from local community members, with only 10% of births coming from PHC staff and dependents. We invited our guests to visit the hospital in Lokutu, where they were able to speak with the facility’s managing doctor about recent successes and progress at the hospital, as well as key challenges still facing our facilities.
PHC Awards: A priority for PHC’s new management is to recognize and celebrate staff for their dedicated work in service of PHC’s growth. With that objective, we launched the PHC awards: a monthly ceremony to honor, celebrate, and reward those workers who have outperformed within their job category. We award prizes for workers in all aspects of PHC’s work― from Harvesters and Transporters, through to Section Leads and Estate Managers―because we know that PHC’s success depends on the participation of all of our employees. Our investors arrived just in time to participate in the November 2021 awards, where we recognized 18 outstanding individuals. This month’s awards ceremony was particularly special as PHC’s Chairman, visiting as part of the delegation, handed out the awards.
Harvesters Morning Call: Every morning at 5:30am, our harvesters gather together in their respective divisions to get ready for the day and address any issues before setting out to work. Our visitors woke up bright and early to join our harvesters for their morning meeting on December 9th. During the meeting, harvesters shared their frustrations that everyone had not yet received their new PHC uniforms, which our new management recently issued as part of a greater effort to provide quality personal protective equipment to our workers. The Lokutu Area General Manager, who accompanied our investors on their visit, was able to quickly resolve the issue of the remaining uniforms, and our visitors were even able to participate in handing them out to those who had not yet received them. To conclude the visit, harvesters then helped our investors try their own hand at harvesting an oil palm fruit bunch, which they discovered is much harder than it looks!
Lokumete Mill Visit: Lokumete Mill is PHC’s largest, most modern palm oil mill, recently commissioned in February 2021 at our Lokutu site. During their visit, our guests were able to see firsthand the contemporary design of the mill, which is fully automated and uses co-generation, a process that makes use of biomass waste from oil palm fruit processing to generate green energy to run the mill, as well as to light offices and provide electricity to residential areas around the mill. Due to the efficiency of the mill’s system, the oil palm fruit bunches we collect are transformed into not into just one product, but five:
- Crude palm oil
- Palm kernel oil
- Palm kernel cake (for animal feed)
- Fertilizer
- Green energy
Yalifombo School: PHC invests in human capital in and around our concessions by refurbishing or rebuilding schools to ensure that children are able to learn in safe and healthy conditions. Our guests joined us for a visit to the Yalifombo School, one of the elementary schools we recently rebuilt in the Lokutu area. The school, which was previously in poor condition, is now up to national standards as a six classroom building with three sets of bathrooms. The school, which was previously in poor condition, is now up to national standards and includes six classrooms and three bathrooms. During the visit, our investors were greeted by the local community with welcome songs and dances. The chief of the village of Yalifombo thanked PHC for the reconstruction of the school, with special thanks to PHC’s management for its involvement and good relationship with the communities.
Staff Housing: One of PHC’s responsibilities as an employer is to provide a house to each worker and their family. Many of the staff houses we currently own were built between 1930-1980, and received very limited maintenance in the years following. Our investors joined us for a visit to see the progress on PHC’s housing plan, which we launched in August 2021 to take back up our responsibility to adequately house all of our workers. The plan, which was informed by a robust needs analysis, aims to renovate or rebuild existing staff houses as needed, or to build entirely new homes where they are lacking. So far, we’ve completed 172 house renovations.
The Congo River: Finally, our investors experienced a brief ride on the Congo River, which is central to PHC’s operations. Due to the limited infrastructure in the rural locations where we operate, there are no roads connecting our site to Kinshasa, where we sell our products to distributors. As such, we make use of the river as our primary transportation route. Our investors only spent 20 minutes on the river, but a shipment of palm oil from Lokutu to Kinshasa can take up to four weeks!
While our investors were only able to visit Lokutu, PHC’s impacts and challenges at the site are emblematic of the realities in our other two sites, Yaligimba and Boteka. As such, our investors were able to get a great taste of the work we are doing across the company. Finally, after 24 hours full of activities, our investors left Lokutu accompanied by dignitaries of the local community to wish them a good journey home, and to thank them for their visit to their land.
