Business News of Tuesday, 10 September 2013

Source: GNA

Kosmos Energy launches business document

Kosmos Energy Ghana on Monday September 9, launched its business principles document to reflect the company’s commitment to doing the right thing across its spectrum of activities.

Mr Ken Keag, Vice-President and Country Manager of Kosmos, said the business principles articulates the company’s view on how a responsible oil and gas operator should seek to interact with the environment and host societies and build strong existing systems in areas such as health and safety and anti-corruption.

“As our business grows, so do our responsibilities and the expectations of us. These business principles directly support our objective to be as good above the ground as we are below,” he said.

Kosmos Energy was founded in 2003 with the goal of creating value for all stakeholders, including investors, employees and the governments and citizens of host countries.

Mr Keag said the principles provided a clear set of standards by defining the company’s commitments to stakeholders, ethical conduct, workplaces, the environment, social issues and commercial relationships that the organisations could hold itself to and against which it could be accountable.

“These principles build on our strong existing policies in relation to health, safety, environmental and security issues and anti-corruption controls,” he said, adding that new policies of human rights and community development were also recently approved by the Board to support the implementation of these Principles.

The principles also draw 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.

“They will serve as the guiding framework for how we run our business and how we interact with our government, suppliers and business partners”, Mr Keag said.

He gave the assurance that Kosmos would continue to review and strengthen the Business Principles and its overall corporate responsibility program over time as the broader business and human rights policy space continues to evolve.

Mr Ben Dagadu, Deputy Minister of Energy and Petroleum, said the Kosmos Business Principles represented a bold step and commitment to meeting organisational goals and enhancing transparency.