Vodafone Ghana has held a day’s seminar on health, safety and ethical practices for 50 suppliers and agents of the company. The seminar was the 2nd of its kind in a year, held every 6 months to review the safety programme of the company. A statement from the company said Vodafone considered health, safety and ethical practices as very crucial to good corporate governance. It said Vodafone also believed that no practice was important enough to put the health, life or livelihood of any of its employees, suppliers or more importantly the general public at risk. The statement quoted Head of Supply Chain Management at Vodafone Ghana as saying “we have therefore not relented in our efforts since entering the Ghanaian market to ensure that our operations and that of our suppliers conform to best and responsible business practices.” It said Vodafone Ghana had within 12 months attained International Safety Rating Level 5, making Vodafone Ghana, the only company in Ghana with such recognition. This feat, the statement said, was achieved due to the implementation of a number of initiatives during the year, including fatality prevention, Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking in all Vodafone Vehicles, frequent safety audits, safety awareness sessions, employee recognition schemes for compliance, adherence and third party compliance. It said as part of the company’s Corporate Responsibility initiative, ethical disposal is also high on the agenda in collaboration with the Environmental Protection Agency to prevent open disposal of oil, burning of electronic waste among others as they are likely to pollute the environment and water table. “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. Two examples are Royal Systems and G&J Technologies who have embedded these principles in their operations’’ Bart Borchardt, said. Godfrey Asiedu, Managing Director of G&J Technical Services said his company bought into health and safety compliance they strongly believed it was the right thing to do as it makes them efficient, saves cost and protects the lives of their employees. “It safeguards our client’s equipment and above all, we contribute our quota in protecting the environment", he said. Godfred Akyea-Darkwah, CEO/Rector of Road Safety and Transportation Consultancy Limited, said Vodafone’s continuous support of road safety programs meant safer roads for Ghana, which was a good contribution to Gross Domestic Product, and better investment opportunities for Ghana. The statement said the next 6 months would see an audit of all high risk suppliers, site inspections for medium risk suppliers, Global Positioning System tracking devices in all high risk suppliers’ vehicles among others. Adom News/Ghana