TruContact Nigeria Chief Executive Officer, Ken Egbas, is a known voice in corporate social responsibility (CSR) circles in Nigeria. His Social Enterprise and Responsibility Awards (SERAs) is in its eighth year, and he has championed the proper regulation of CSR.
In this interview with Senior Correspondent, GODDIE OFOSE, Egbas refutes the charge that TINAPA in Calabar is another failed government project.
Assessment of CSR in the past six months
Ken Egbas
The industry has maintained a steady and upward swing. Though I must say that by what I have seen so far this year, company’s expenditure on corporate social responsibility and sustainability appears to have thawed a bit. I cannot readily explain why.
However, it may be connected with the general state of the national economy. I hope we see an improvement soon.
Effectiveness of CSR crusade
You are right when you say we began CSR advocacy in Nigeria. When we began promoting it back in 2005, there were only three organisations that had CSR as a policy document. And only one of them was implementing it.
We didn’t invent the term CSR. It was coined in 1953 in Bowen’s publication ‘Social Responsibility of Businessmen’, where he asked ‘what responsibility to society can business people be reasonably expected to assume?’
The term has since grown and evolved at a pace the world did not initially reckon with. It evolved to the point whereby in the Western and more industrialised nations, CSR practices were becoming market differentiators among competition and also a platform for express good corporate governance, best practices or even ethical high standards or environmental stewardship.
Our role, we believed, was to prepare the Nigerian business environment for the coming movement and get it to align accordingly, especially since quite a number of businesses play in the global market place.
Our initial attempts met with some derision. Many even said to us at that time that those things that happen in the West could not hold their ground here in Nigeria or Africa. Well, their views have changed and we are thankful now that these same companies are number one promoters of the concept of CSR.
When we commenced the awards, we understood our roles correctly as purveyors on a new industry in Nigeria. Besides the awards, we also went into publishing Nigeria’s first and most comprehensive ‘Nigeria Social Enterprise Report’, which captures best practices across Nigeria in CSR by Nigerian companies.
Today, we circulate it even internationally and it has become a must-have tool for most CSR practitioners. Then we notice a knowledge gap in the market that caused us to design international level trainings that have catered to most of Nigeria’s leading organisations learning needs in CSR.
Most of the key players in the industry today have taken part in our training activities or worked with us in some capacity. As such, it fills us with tremendous pride to see them join their voices to ours in promoting CSR and sustainability in Nigeria.
The growth potentials of the industry are massive. And quality contributions by these various groups would help keep up the standard.
Sectors keen on CSR
This year, the manufacturing sector is really rising up to the challenge. It had lagged behind a bit since CSR activities gained a foothold in 2007.
Between 2008 and 2011, it was a straight fight between the banking and telecom sectors as to who was doing more in CSR in Nigeria. But some of the biggest initiatives we are seeing lately are coming from the manufacturing sector. And it is quite visible, going by the entries we received this year for the Nigeria CSR Awards (The SERAs).
Legislation and regulation
The debate to regulate rages on globally. A few months ago we saw India being the first country to pass into law a mandate that all companies operating in the economy invest in CSR based on annual returns.
I don’t know if that would work in Nigeria. But I am an advocate of organisations self-regulating. And by that I believe that when we get organisations to see that CSR and sustainability is good for business and is a viable model while ensuring a just and equitable society – and also create an environment that makes them more viable – we would have more companies voluntarily joining the CSR and sustainability movement.
For long, I have heard the argument for and against regulation. My fear is that the moment a law comes into place, we might be foisted with a situation where companies with more wherewithal will do just enough to meet the legal requirements against the instances where they had done more in the past.
Yes, we can argue that it would bring more companies into play. But when you force anything on anyone, do they really give it their best shot? Right now there are good examples of companies which are self-regulating because they believe it is the right thing to do.
And of course there are many bad examples of companies which are not doing what they know they should do because their sole focus is profitability and not people or the planet. There has to be some sort of balancing.
Impact of SERA in CSR industry
The SERAs has been a massive boost to the growth and development of Nigeria. In 2007 when we had the first awards, CSR spend by Nigeria’s leading 100 companies was a few hundred million naira compared to the several billions recorded in net spend by some companies. That shows you how far the industry has come.
Today, the need for specialists has also thrown up opportunities for several people to become consultants in various sub sectors of CSR. For the past three years, we have taken the conversation to the top of organisations. Now in most companies, CEO’s are part of the discussions on CSR, not just the corporate affairs department.
And the SERAs gold statuette (won at the CSR Awards) in the boardrooms of organisations shows how far some of them have come. They make reference to it in their annual reports. Today, it is the gold standard to have CSR practice in Nigeria.
As I said, the SERAs is Nigeria’s most credible corporate award. And we would never have achieved this without the partnership of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), and a few international bodies which provided us with technical support.
How organisations see CSR marketing tool
I believe strongly that in the concept of market evolution, there are times when new ideas come up and it takes some time for people to really understand what the new trend portends.
Many who push massive media leverage or public relations behind CSR activities only do so because they do not understand the essence of CSR or sustainability. PR should highlight CSR and sustainability and use the platform of story telling to accentuate a good CSR programme.
Organisations that subsume the CSR manager under the PR department may be doing more harm to their journey than good. It is best when they are placed at par in the management grid, but also in a way that they work together or complement each other.
However, looking at future trend, I make bold to state that with the way CSR and sustainability is becoming the platform for driving product and services innovation, CSR managers would soon start seeing themselves have offices next to their CEOs, based on how key their role is in their organisations.
Another issue we may look at closely is reputation. There are three foundations of reputation: economic performance; social responsiveness; the ability to deliver favourable outcome to stakeholders.
Public relations play a role in all three foundations, but professionals who manage conflict more effectively will enhance the ability to manage the latter two. Social responsiveness, which we can relate to CSR in this case, results from careful issue tracking and effective positioning of the organisation. It is further enhanced when risk communication is compelling and persuasive.
The ability to deliver value to stakeholders who depend on or look up to the organisation result in part from fending off threats to the organisation that could impair its mission.
But looking more deeply at the market, the situation is not as prevalent as it once was. Hopefully, we are all learning to do things the right way.
Encouraging SMEs to carry out CSR
Before now, many small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) held the view that CSR and sustainability was meant for multinationals and big corporations. But gradually that view is changing; they now understand that what the world seeks is impactful change and intervention.
I have seen organisations that spend N10 million on CSR in a year put in place more sustainable interventions than even those spending N100 million.
So, good CSR is not necessarily dependent on the extent of expenditure but rather on good thought and understanding of the issues being addressed and how these connect to the vision and mission of the company.
Is TINAPA worth the investment?
Honestly, I wish I could provide you all the answers. But perhaps I would do more justice to the topic if I spoke as a Nigerian and not as a Cross Riverian.
TINAPA is a business and leisure resort north of Calabar and associated with the Calabar Free Trade Zone. It is being developed in four phases under a private public partnership (PPP) promoted by Cross River State.
TINAPA free zone and resort has facilities for retail and wholesale activities as well as leisure and entertainment. It has about 80,000 square metres of lettable space for retail and wholesale, comprising four emporiums of 10,000 square metres each and smaller shops, warehouses, and so on.
I knew that it was a project ahead of its time when former Governor Donald Duke conceptualised it. But I believe that, along the line, a brilliant idea was sacrificed on the alter of politics.
The issue really was that it was meant to be the property of Cross River State government, run by the state; but going by the laws of Nigeria, only the federal government can run an export processing zone. That was the snag.
At some point, all that needed to be done was for a law to be passed in the National Assembly to empower the state government to run the project, even if having to concede stakes to the federal government. Failure to find an amiable agreement between both parties is what I think is responsible for the impasse.
At some point, even Governor Liyel Imoke appealed to the federal government to take a stake in the project, and to remove uncertainty about its status, which is hindering investment.
He suggested that one approach could be to decouple leisure facilities from the trading zone. But that didn’t yield much as the issues around the project preceded his coming as governor.
But I hope that someday somebody in authority would visit that facility and be touched by the reality of the sight and ask what can be done to save the over $400 million invested.
When we see beyond the political disagreements into the huge positive economic and social developmental impact the export processing zones could have on the economy of the Southern and Eastern parts of Nigeria, the thousands of jobs that could be created, the importance of creating another national commercial hub outside of Lagos, it is then we would allow objectivity and national interest to rule over sentiment.
Another white elephant?
It is only people who are yet to visit TINAPA to see things for themselves that would describe it as a white elephant project. People should first take a trip there to see a project of that stature which, as big and elaborate as it is, has only the first of four phases completed.
When you see the architectural and infrastructure outlay, and if you are someone like some of us gifted with visioneering and the ability to spot gold in an abstract form, the immediate emotion that would overcome you is that of frustration for this country and why we can’t unsentimentally line up behind an idea that is a good one.
I have hope that, like a phoenix in the desert, TINAPA would rise and take its place internationally as a trade zone of repute in the comity of nations.
