Lafarge Africa Plc., a global leader in innovative and sustainable building solutions has announced its recent award on Corporate Governance by the prestigious Institute of Directors (IoD) Nigeria.
The award, which reinforces the importance of best practice amongst corporate entities quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange Group, was presented to the company at the 2021 IoD Nigeria Annual Dinner & Award Night held in Lagos recently.
The President and Chairman of the Governing Council, Dr. (Mrs.) Ije Jidenma, F.IoD, in a statement said the award is to recognize performance and to reward corporate excellence among companies operating in Nigeria, with the ultimate goal of achieving a truly enterprise-wide culture of governance and ethics in organizations.
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 its day-to-day business operations including Board evaluation, Board and Executive compensation, Disclosures, Company Social Responsibility policies and procedure, stakeholder outreach and communication, compliance operations, anti-fraud procedures and an understanding of the rights and need of all stakeholders.
The CCEO, Lafarge Africa Plc, Khaled El Dokani while expressing his appreciation remarked: “We are truly honoured to receive the prestigious Corporate Governance Award from the Institute of Directors, Nigeria. Lafarge prides itself as an organization that acts and operates ethically and responsibly, taking into consideration the rights and interests of all our stakeholders.’
The General Counsel and Company Secretary, Lafarge Africa Plc, Adewunmi Alode 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 organization 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.”
She continued: “Our Code of Business Conduct is adapted from the Holcim Group’s code of conduct and it reinforces our desire to conduct our business with integrity as well as respect for our local laws. It ensures 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.”
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