The Centre for Corporate Responsibility, at the University of Ghana Business School, has organised a consultative workshop to seek the input of stakeholders in the formulation of the National Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Policy.

The workshop, which took place in Tamale on Wednesday, seeks to fine tune the law to define and clarify the misconceptions about the CSR and provide guidelines to measure and hold organisations accountable on their interaction with communities.

The centre has already organised five of such stakeholders’ meeting and according to Dr Dan Ofori, Coordinator at the centre it was too early to predict that the concerns of the people would be the same.

He noted that there is growing concern among Ghanaians about poor organisational responsibility towards employees as well as communities.
Dr Ofori said other  key issues that emerged from various discussions was that most people were not happy that government would enforce the policy when passed into law and called for an independent body to be made responsible for the  implementation.
Alhaji Alhassan Issahaque, Northern Regional Coordinating Director, said one of the aims of the policy was to promote the contribution of business to the socio-economic development of areas in which they operate.This, he said would yield positive and sustainable impact towards the achievement of the principles of the Millennium Development Goals on poverty alleviation, universal education, gender equality, sustainable environment and improved health care.
He noted that the country in the last few decades had seen a radical change in the private sector’s relationship with the state and civil societies.
Alhaji Issahaque said the effect of globalisation, privatisation, acquisition and take over as well as mergers of corporate entities had led to the emergence of new approach to business society relationships.
“Companies are increasingly recognising that, improving their own impacts and addressing wider social and environmental challenges of communities will be crucial in securing their long-term success and sustainability,” he said.
Alhaji Issahaque urged participants to be frank and offer constructive inputs that would help shape the policy.