By Lukmon Oloyede.
Chairman of Promasidor Nigeria, Chief Keith Richards has stressed the need for CSR initiatives to be credible, transparent and auditable if they must make maximum impact. He said this while delivering the keynote address at this year’s public lecture of AGM/PR Week of The Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), Lagos State Chapter themed: “Corporate Social Responsibility: Prospect &Challenges in a Growing Economy”.
According to him “Organizations need to work the talk more on CSR. Your CSR initiatives should be relevant to your corporate brand; it has to be credible, transparent and auditable.” He also advised organizations embarking on CSR to be realistic with their budget and emphasized the need for effective communication with their internal publics.
Speaking on the challenges of CSR in the country he also observed the problem of poor tracking mechanism in assessing the performance of CSR and corporate investments.
On the theme of the public lecture, Barrister Joseph Okonmah explained that “In a growing economy like ours, we need to dimension the prospects and challenges, thereby positioning CSR as one of the key parameters of knowing how an organization or firm is doing in any given environment.”
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Ken Egbas, Chief Responsibility Officer at Tru Contact, who was one of the discussants, charged PR practitioners to give ample advice to corporate organisations and government in order to bridge the challenges of national building.
He also identified over-communication, image laundering, erosion of credibility and lack of proper documentation on CSR as a challenge that the institute and other stakeholders need to work together to solve.
The Speaker, Lagos State House of Assembly, RT. Hon Mudashiru Obasawho was the Special Guest of Honour at the event, also called for the more robust relationship between the State government and corporate organization. The speaker who was represented by Hon. Tunde Braimah, a member of the State House of Assembly.
