Ensuring a zero-tolerance on corruption has always been the overarching ambition of the biggest and leading telecoms company, Orange Sierra Leone. To achieve the objective, the company’s Ethics and Compliance Team yesterday held an anti-corruption training for employees and partners of the company.
The training is part of a number of training exercises which the company has been providing for its numerous stakeholders. The sessions are held twice within a year. Raising awareness and preventing corruption, Fighting corruption, highlighting corruption risks and consequences for non-compliance are the main objectives of the training.
It helps partners to understand about the company’s stance on corruption, and avoid and report incidents of corruption to the company’s authorities. The Director of General Secretaries Department, Haffie Haffner and Head of Compliance, Gerald Cole facilitated the training. In her address prior to the commencement of the one-day training, Madam Haffner told the participants that intensifying the fight against corruption has been a global concern adding that the private sector was not left out.
She said since Orange Sierra Leone was listed in the New York Stock Exchange, the company was subject not only to local but also to global anti-corruption laws. The subjection of the company to several laws on corruption presents a clear case for the company to ensure integrity among its employees and partners.
“We have a responsibility to operate in a transparent and ethical manner. Administrative and management structures for the prevention, investigation and mitigation of incidents of corruption must be in place,” Madam Haffner told participants. She said Orange Sierra Leone had a dedicated ethics and compliance team to ensure the fight against corruption becomes a success story.
Stressing the importance of trainings on corruption for employees and partners, Madam Haffner hopes for a corruption-free environment for Orange Sierra Leone.
She says knowledge is power and that a person would only know what to do and what not to do if they are properly trained.
“There must be the requisite knowledge on corruption,” she said.
Orange Sierra Leone Director believes that failing to understand corruption is an issue in any relationship that puts values at the core of its operations. Madam Haffner also gave a rundown of the training Sessions the company conducted.
“In 2019, we trained 72% of our staff, and in 2020 we developed a digital method of training owing to the outbreak of COVID-19 and was 100% completed. We also trained three partners: Mr Klin, Pendrax and drivers,” she pointed out.
She further stated that priority is placed on training employees who are highly exposed to corruption. She said most of them were trained last year adding that they had a commitment to train all of them.
Another facilitator, Gerald Cole Head of Compliance, told the participants that Orange Sierra Leone operated in over 30 countries with a branch in the United Kingdom. The presence of the telecoms company in several countries, Cole went on, made it worthwhile for the company not only to fight corruption under the local laws but also under international treaties.
“We have an unavoidable obligation to fight corruption,” he assured.
In his overview, Cole sees corruption as giving or promise of giving anything of value for someone to do something that they are not entitled to do.
In short, he says, corruption is anything wrong or unethical. The Head of Compliance said corruption was wide adding that it was not only a concern for government but also for the private sector.
Cole also spoke briefly on the dangers of corruption noting that it created unnecessary costs and delays.
“It delays in the production and delivery of goods and services,” he emphasised.
The training, he went on, was important because corruption by partners is corruption by Orange Sierra Leone.
“A partner who gives a bribe to any person is equivalent to the company giving out the bribe,” he said.
Mr Cole also took the participants through on the company’s key polices on corruption. A Code of Conduct, an Internal Sanction, Risk assessment, Due Diligence, Accounting Controls and Procedures, Internal Evaluation, Cole said, were the key polices on corruption for Orange Sierra Leone. The Code of Conduct talks about what to do and what not to do.
Under the Internal Sanction policy, an employee of the company must be investigated for any act of corruption. A while blowing system is also encouraged under the Internal Sanction Policy to give opportunity to partners to report any act of corruption.
In the Risk Assessment policy, all the risks associated with a particular activity to be implemented must be assessed. With the policy of Due Diligence, a background check must be conducted on business entity or partner contracted to offer service for credibility.
In the Accounting Controls and procedures, the company is under obligation to keep accurate and up-to-date records of its accounts. Under the Internal Evaluation Control Procedures, accounts and activities of the company have to be audited to ensure that they are not just on paper, but they are implemented. Apart from the afore-mentioned policies, Cole said, the company had a Gift and Entertainment and a Conflict of Interest policies.
The former bars the company’s employees from receiving gifts without declaring them to management.
Under the same policy, employees are also prohibited from receiving a gift that amounts to Le890, 000 (Eight Hundred and Ninety Thousand Leones) for a year. The latter makes it compulsory for employees to declare issues relating to conflict of interest at the start of every year. Ensuring the workability of these processes, Cole said, the will must be demonstrated by the company’s top management.
Operating under the ‘Tone At the Top Principle,’ the head of the organisation must champion ethics and compliance by saying and acting in the right way.
He also mentioned that an appropriate governance system is in place within the organisation such as the Ethics, Risk, Finance and other committees as well as a Compliance Officers Network that reports to the Board of Directors for Orange Sierra Leone. Like the Risk Committee, the Ethics committee meet four times a year to map out strategies to ensure professional standards in the company.
For the past three years, he said, there had been an ethics clause in contracts and supplies for the company.
“Once the clause is included in the contracts, suppliers are under contractual obligation to comply with the company’s ethics,” he stressed.
Chief Executive Officer Orange Sierra Leone, Aminata Kane Ndiaye through a video address told participants that businesses all over the world faced risks of corruption, but were under pressure to comply with ethics. Mrs Ndiaye said her organisation had to comply with several anti-corruption laws citing Sierra Leone’s Anti-Corruption law of 2008 as a clear case in point.
The Orange Sierra Leone CEO called on Sierra Leoneans especially business partners to join the company in the fight against corruption adding that the company discouraged any form of corruption in its operations.