Senior Business Correspondent
NEDCOR, the financial services group, has spent R55m on a broad range of community projects via its foundations and trusts in the past year, according to its first corporate citizenship report.
SA companies have adopted global trends of not only focusing on profit but also on investments ploughed back into the communities and environments they operate in.
Nedcor contributes a percentage of its net profit after tax to the Nedcor Foundation which looks after the group's corporate social investments.
The foundation operates in co-ordination with the Nedbank-linked affiliates (Sports Trust, Arts and Culture Trust and Green Trust).
In its report, the group said its projects had a strong focus on youth, women and people with disabilities.
Of particular concern to the foundation in the coming year would be projects and programmes that target out-of-school and unemployed youth.
The group's value of affirmative procurement in the year under review was R67,7m. This constituted 6,6% of total procurement spend.
One of the major factors contributing to the slow growth of affirmative suppliers is often their inability to access finance.
Ownership of suppliers is verified by review of legal ownership documents, telephonic monitoring, site visits and other methods available to ensure that participating businesses are eligible in terms of Nedcor's procurement policy.
With more than 7000 third-party suppliers, Nedcor has undertaken an information-sharing process in order to ensure that its traditionally preferred suppliers are supportive of Nedcor's affirmative procurement policy aims.
Nedcor spent R112m making up 3,7% of the total payroll on training staff in the past year.
Of this figure R85m was targeted towards the training of historically disadvantaged individuals.
The group also completed a case study on HIV/AIDS for the World Economic Forum.
Jun 13 2003 06:10:22:000AM Patrick Wadula Business Day 1st Edition
Friday
13 June 2003
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