Sudhir calls upon Ugandans to follow SOPs in the new year

By Deo Wasswa

One of Uganda's biggest employers and proprietor of Ruparelia group has confessed that 2020 has been a challenging year for the group Group since it was founded more than 30 years ago. He attributed this to the outbreak of corona virus pandemic globally.

In his end of the year statement, Sudhir Ruparelia said that it was tough having to close doors to thousands of their staff members and customers.

"We took it all in good measure, because we knew it was the right thing to do and we knew the rest of Uganda and the world, had to make these little sacrifices for us to be able to manage the ravaging effects of the COVID-19 disease." Dr Sudir said.

He noted that as a group, they reached deep within themselves for some innovations such as online learning across all their educational institutions, put in place extra health and safety standards at commercial buildings and hotels and adopted home working for some of the non-essential staff.

In the statement he revealed that the lessons learnt in 2020 will forever remain with the group.

Sudhir also encouraged Ugandans and said that 2020 is done and we all did what we could to stay alive and keep our loved ones alive too. The pain we went through in 2020, should not be in vain,there is light at the end of the tunnel, in the form of a vaccine. To date, there are five approved vaccines. We understand that Uganda, like most of the developing world, will begin to get our shots in the second quarter of 2021.

According to him, Much as this is excellent news, a vaccine won’t be useful if you are dead by then. Uganda survived the first wave by primarily observing the SOPs. "I believe we can survive the second wave too by continuing to cooperate with the government to follow the SOPs as we wait for the vaccine. Observing SOPs is also essential for the reopening of the economy almost fully, saving jobs and raising the necessary tax revenue to keep many of the government programmes running," He adds