THE National Milling Company (NAMILCO) recently made a significant donation of laboratory equipment to the Chemistry Department of the University of Guyana (UG) to enhance the delivery of its programme.

Mr. Bert Sukhai (left) hands the equipment over to Assistant Lecturer of the Chemistry Department, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Ms. Nazrana Mohamed (right) as other staff members and students look on.

A press release said that Managing Director of the company, Mr. Bert Sukhai during the presentation at the Turkeyen Campus, East Coast Demerara recalled that a request was made by the Assistant Lecturer of the Chemistry Department, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Ms. Nazrana Mohamed, to assist her Department with a number of items for her laboratory.

According to Ms. Mohamed all courses offered by the Department involve practical activities which play a vital role in effective delivery of chemistry including problem solving abilities.

Sukhai said through a letter, the lecturer stated that there are two labs with one room accommodating 40 students and the other, 32 students with eight students per work bench.

She said these labs are used simultaneously so as to accommodate some 410 students who are enrolled in CHM 111 however with the limited number of burettes that is available, it is difficult for all students to have access to a burette for titration exercises.

“This appeal by Ms. Mohamed came to my desk just when we were celebrating our 40th anniversary and, in addition to the vast array of contributions to the community that we presently make, we were looking at areas of need to give back something at this special time for us,” he said.

“It always gives us pleasure to help those in need and with the knowledge that our contribution will assist in the development of youths (in this case the students at UG) and for the eventual development of Guyana,” he stressed.

Also, he noted, “We have always been able to recruit excellent graduates from UG to work as quality control Technician in our own laboratory. They would come to us without any experience in the flour milling industry and quickly adapt to their unique job of testing our raw materials and finished products and troubleshooting customer related and other complaints.”

He also noted that NAMILCO was ISO 9001: 2008 certified which requires the company to be ‘on our toes’ maintaining and indeed exceeding quality standards at all time.