Vodafone Wins Best Procurement Community Award

Vodafone Ghana, a company of the world leading mobile telecommunications giant, Vodafone Group Plc has been awarded the prestigious award of "Best Procurement Community" at the Pan Africa Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply awards ceremony held in Johannesburg, South Africa, last week. The winning submission outlined Vodafone Ghana�s initiatives and successes in raising Health and Safety (H&S) awareness and introducing best procurement practise across the community encompassing 1400 employees, 800 suppliers and the general public as a whole. ��Vodafone Ghana has taken health, safety and ethical procurement practices to another level of our operations in Ghana. Vodafone Ghana is immensely proud that the implementation and insistence of standards in Ghana, has resulted in some of our local partners championing this to even greater heights, resulting in this enviable award. We consider that reducing cost of doing business in Ghana is critical for the nation�s pursuit of becoming investment destination in the sub-region��, Bart Borchardt, Head of Supply Chain Management of Vodafone Ghana disclosed. Upon entering into the Ghanaian telecommunications market, the company introduced a number of measures to ensure that, its operations and that of its suppliers conform to best and responsible business practices. These include streamlining its suppliers list and ensuring that only businesses with the requisite certification to operate under the Ghanaian laws including fulfilment of all tax obligations are maintained. Bart Borchardt, Head of Supply Chain Management says ��this is very crucial for good corporate governance in emerging markets, and Vodafone strongly believes it is the right thing to do as it makes us efficient, save cost and protect the image and integrity of the company and that of our suppliers.� �Vodafone�s insistent upon highest standards and policies have not only changed dangerous practices within the telecommunications sector, but across other sectors in Ghana. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our suppliers who have worked so hard to instill these rigorous H&S standards in their work practices in Ghana. This highly coveted Pan African Award is a testament to how far we have come and we are looking forward to working with our key suppliers to continue making Ghana a safe place to work.� Bart commented.