Lafarge Africa Plc, has announced its recent award on Corporate Governance by the prestigious Institute of Directors (IoD) Nigeria.
The Country Chief Executive Officer, Lafarge Africa, Mr Khaled El Dokani, made the disclosure in a statement on Thursday, in Lagos.
According to the statement, the award, which reinforced the importance of best practice amongst corporate entities, quoted on the Nigerian Exchange Limited, was presented to the company at the 2021 IoD Nigeria Annual dinner/award night.
While expressing his appreciation, Dokani said: “We are truly honoured to receive the prestigious corporate governance award from the IoD Nigeria.
“Lafarge prides itself as an organisation that acts and operates ethically and responsibly, taking into consideration the rights and interests of all our stakeholders,” he said.
The President/Chairman of the governing council, Dr Ije Jidenma, said that the award was to recognise performance and reward corporate excellence among companies operating in Nigeria, with the ultimate goal of achieving a truly enterprise-wide, culture of governance and ethics in the organisations.
Jidenma explained in the statement that to be eligible for consideration, companies must have demonstrated a high level of effectiveness across the four pillars of corporate governance – accountability, transparency, fairness and responsibility.
“As well as the practice of good corporate governance, ethics, compliance with regulatory requirements and adherence to risk management processes, across the entire corporation, including its subsidiaries.
“In addition, companies must prove their ability to integrate a governance structure into their day-to-day business operations, including board evaluation, board and executive compensation disclosures,” he said.
He also added that eligibility included a company’s social responsibility policies and procedure, stakeholder outreach and communication, compliance operations, anti-fraud procedures and an understanding of the rights and needs of all stakeholders.
Mrs Adewunmi Alode, the General Counsel/Company Secretary, Lafarge Africa, said: “At Lafarge Africa, we apply the highest standards of corporate governance, which are aligned with our values and ethics as a business and cascaded from our leadership.
“Our organisation is guided by a robust system of corporate governance under the Nigerian Code of Corporate Governance 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Corporate Governance guidelines, and relevant international best practices on corporate governance.
“Our Code of Business Conduct is adapted from the Holcim Group’s code of conduct and it reinforced our desire to conduct our business with integrity and respect for our local laws.
“It ensured that all our directors, officers and employees share in Holcim’s commitment to conducting our business with integrity.
“These are also communicated to our vendors/suppliers through our Suppliers’ Code of Conduct, which stipulates our commitments to our suppliers and the values and principles, which are expected of them and other third-party contractors,” she noted in the statement.
The statement recalled that Lafarge Africa, earlier this year received the 2021 Gold Award for Customer Service Excellence, at the West Africa Innovation Awards, among others.