CEO of Kenya’s biggest firm declares wealth to boost anti-graft fight
The head of Kenya’s largest publicly-traded company, telecoms operator Safaricom, has declared personal wealth of $2.7 million, saying he wants to increase transparency and fight graft in the East African nation. Public pressure has mounted on President Uhuru Kenyatta to deal with corruption after a spate of media reports about inflated government contracts and outright theft of funds by officials. Bob Collymore, Safaricom CEO, posted a signed document showing the value of his net assets in cash, property and stocks. “It is my belief that all of Kenya’s leaders and CEOs should declare their assets in order to embed transparency within their organisations,” he said. Collymore was part of a recent initiative by the private sector that drew up a proposed anti-bribery bill, prescribing severe penalties for bribe givers and receivers within the business community. “The Bill will make it an offence for corporations to act in an unethical manner and seeks to strongly embed responsibility within the corporate ecosystem,” he said. (Reuters)
Corporate Reputation
Tobacco firms challenge UK plain packaging rules
Four of the world’s biggest tobacco firms are to begin a legal challenge to the UK government’s new packaging rules. The regulations will ban companies from using any logos or branding on packets of tobacco products from May 2016. The government argues the measure will discourage more people from smoking. Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco and Japan Tobacco International say it will unlawfully destroy their highly valuable intellectual property rights, and render products indistinguishable from each other. They claim the regulations violate a number of UK and EU laws, and that data from Australia, which brought in plain packaging in 2012, fails to prove such a move reduces smoking rates. The Department of Health is fighting the High Court challenge, and says the change is an important public health measure aimed at discouraging children from smoking and helping smokers to quit. (BBC)
Undercover reporters find Sports Direct effectively paying below minimum wage
Temporary workers at UK retail chain Sports Direct are receiving effective hourly rates of pay below the minimum wage, according to an investigation by the Guardian. Warehouse staff at the group are required to go through searches at the end of each shift, for which their time is unpaid, and suffer harsh deductions from their wage packets for clocking in for a shift just one minute late. The practices contribute to many staff being paid an effective rate of about £6.50 an hour, against the statutory rate of £6.70. The criticisms of Sports Direct have also included questions about whether its pricing policies are misleading, as well as the influence the founder and majority owner Mike Ashley has on a company whose shares are held by many UK pension funds. The investigation follows a string of criticisms of the working conditions within the retailer’s warehouse, where more than 80 percent of staff are on zero hours contracts, and workers are reportedly harangued by tannoy for not working fast enough. (Guardian)
Climate Change
Greenpeace exposes sceptics hired to cast doubt on climate science
An undercover sting by Greenpeace has revealed that two prominent climate sceptics were available for hire by the hour to write reports casting doubt on the dangers posed by global warming. Posing as consultants to fossil fuel companies, Greenpeace approached professors at leading US universities to commission reports touting the benefits of rising carbon dioxide levels and the benefits of coal. In both cases, the professors discussed ways to obscure the funding for the reports, at the request of the fake companies. Such practices are receiving greater scrutiny in academic circles after it emerged in February that Dr Willie Soon, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, was financed almost entirely by fossil fuel companies and lobby groups. Greenpeace said it had approached a total of seven prominent figures in the US and UK climate denial movement. The other five declined, either citing time pressures and area of expertise, or just did not respond. (Guardian)
Health
First dengue fever vaccine approved by Mexico
A dengue fever vaccine developed by the French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi has been approved for use by Mexico, the first approval in the world for any vaccine for the disease, which afflicts tens of millions of people around the world and is becoming an increasing threat. Sanofi said in a news release that the vaccine, which it is calling Dengvaxia, was approved by Mexico’s Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risk for prevention of dengue in people 9 to 45 years old living in endemic areas. “We are making dengue the next vaccine-preventable disease,” Olivier Charmeil, executive vice president for vaccines at Sanofi, said in an interview. But it is still uncertain how widely the vaccine will be deployed, both in Mexico and other countries, because of limits to its effectiveness and national budgets. (NY Times)
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