Listed Company, Illovo Sugar is embracing Cooperate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Cooperate Shared Vision (CSV) to fulfill their mandate of contributing to the development of the country.
The sentiments were made on Thursday at Parliament Building in Lilongwe as the Parliamentary Committee on Social and Community Affairs was meeting Illovo Sugar plc to appreciate the CSR efforts and how they identify their priority areas.
Speaking on the side lines of the meeting, Managing Director for Illovo Sugar (Malawi) plc, Lekani Katandula contrasted CSR which is sharing value created by the business and CSV that is creating value through business done jointly with stakeholders.
“CSV is a concept that we move away from one donor just giving resources to assist different beneficiaries without creating any further value; to a scenario where you do investments which help create value for both parties by finding business opportunities to create supply as well as employment,” he said.
Katandula reaffirmed Illovo’s ongoing commitment to spreading their CSR activities across Malawi in response to queries raised by the Committee on limiting CSR to people within Illovo’s principle area of operation.
“They want us to increase the amounts that are intended to benefit people outside our primary areas of operations referencing Chikwawa and Nkhotakota. The committee says our sugar reaches to all Malawians, so from time to time we should run programmes for the constituencies, which is something we do and showed the committee for their appreciation,” he said.
Meanwhile Vice Chairman of the committee, Bernard Chitekwe hailed Illovo for introducing the rather new concept of CSV in the trading sector as well as their commendable efforts towards CSR.
“They are introducing CSV which is a very good move, we shall introduce it to our line ministry, the ministry of trade so that they take it up and probably have it embedded in some of the polices that implement CSR.
“They have over 15,000 employees and are making strides within their areas of operation, we are still asking them to make contribution towards all districts in Malawi highlighting the disabled, youth, women and underprivileged,” he said.
