Ben Kiragu, CIPE Country Director/Courtesy
, NAIROBI, Kenya Jun 11- Nairobi is set to host Africa Business Ethics Conference between June 25th -26th
The two-day conference will bring together members of the private sector, government, media and the civil society to discuss practical solutions for the private sector in Africa to combat corruption and explore opportunities for collaboration between the stakeholders represented with a view of private sector taking a lead role.
Chair Kenya Private Sector Alliance Foundation Lee Karuri said this will help SME’s boost their way of doing business in Africa.
“The desired impact of the conference is to see raising standards of business practice for efficiency to drive cross border trade, business growth, economic stabilities, and sustainability of SMEs and reduce business & financial risk also making Africa an attractive foreign direct investment destination, “he said.
The theme of the conference is Best practices for better business: The role of the private sector in promoting transparency and accountability.
“This will be part of the ongoing efforts around the Ouagadougou Declaration; developed in partnership with the World Movement for Democracy and the US Chamber of Commerce that brings together the private sector, government, and civil society to find new ways to address societal problems” says, Country Director Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) Ben Kiragu,” he said.
The conference comes in the wake of a Corruption Risk Mapping (CRM) and Anti-Bribery Compliance Assessment conducted in November 2018 in the Private Sector by KEPSA and CIPE that mapped out 1200 private businesses.
85% of respondents reported that there was corruption in various forms in private sector business operations across Kenya.
However, the risk was highest among small businesses compared to medium-sized and large businesses with the prevalent forms of corruption being bribery, fraud, tax evasion, embezzlement, extortion, abuse of office, favoritism and procurement related misconducts.
“Together with our partners, we aim to bring a lot of powerful private sector and independent thinking and acting Institutions together, to give a strong challenge to corrupt corporations, institutions and people. We will give them support through Group Purchasing within the project companies and to canvass governmental institutions to give support to our members in getting support for work permits etc.” said member of the Secretariat of the Blue Company Julius Kipng’etich.
“In businesses, corruption increases the cost of doing business; creates unfair playing ground and curtails efforts towards efficiency-improvement innovations that could further promote profitability of businesses. Although Africa continues to make strides in many spheres of economic development however Africa’s leap is constantly being curtailed by corruption.” Says Eng. Patrick Obath, Chair Adrian Group
Some of the speakers for this conference set to be held at Safari Park Hotel include, Chairman Adrian Kenya Patrick Obath, CEO Integrity Organization Ltd Nigeria Olusoji Apampa, Director Corruption Prevention and Education Division of ICAC Mauritius Isswar Jheengut among others.
Despite efforts done in curbing the vice, Africa is making insignificant progress towards eradicating corruption. Whereas efforts being done across the region are laudable, more needs to be done especially by the private sector. We believe that this conference will provide practical options for the private sector to pursue the fight against corruption successfully” added President Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KNCCI) Richard Ngatia.
