Kosmos Energy committed to local content implementation

The Vice-president and Country Manager of Kosmos Energy Ghana, Mr Ken Keag, has said the company was committed to the full implementation of local content, which will ensure that many Ghanaians benefitted from the new oil and gas industry in the country through best business practices.

He said the company was also committed to ethical business practices to ensure transparency and accountability. Speaking at the launch of the company’s business principles in Takoradi, he said the occasion was a demonstration that it sought to do the right thing across all spectrums of the company’s business activities.

He said during the company’s external consultation process to solicit inputs from all stakeholders, it came up with six business principles which spelt out responsibility to its stakeholders: Ethical conduct, work environment, commitment to environment, society and commercial relationship with its stakeholders to ensure more transparency and accountability to the people.

“The business principles articulate our view of how a responsible oil and gas operator should seek to interact with the environment and host societies and build on strong existing systems in areas such as health and safety and anti-corruption,” he stated.

Mr Keag said as the company’s business grew, so did its responsibilities, as well as the expectations from the stakeholders.

He said while Kosmos was proud of the principles, the company was also committed to continuous learning and improvement and that the move was to strengthen references to core labour standards and making standards for contractors more demanding.

The new principles, he said, were also to incorporate references to ‘human dignity’ in both the principles and the company’s new human rights policy along with stronger language around cultural sensitivity of the environment within which they operated.

The principles, he said, incorporated a stronger focus for Kosmos’ social investment and broader socio-economic strategy on building human capacity and creating economic opportunities.

Giving the background, Mr Keag said in November, 2012, Kosmos Energy Ghana held a special workshop and engaged multiple stakeholders on the principles, policies and corporate social responsibility programme of the company.

The workshop, he said, outlined the profile of Kosmos Energy and challenges in its operations in Africa and Latin America and stakeholders were invited to openly discuss the tenets of Kosmos Energy's policies and corporate social responsibility strategy, which resulted in putting together the document.

He said the six principles drew upon leading international benchmarks such as the UN Guiding Principles on Security and Human Rights, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights.

“I can assure you that these principles will serve as the guiding framework for how we run our business and how we interact with our host governments, suppliers and business partners and you have to hold us to it,” he said.

Source: Graphic Business