• Friday, March 29, 2024
businessday logo

BusinessDay

CSR in the coronavirus era: A N75m example from Kaduna State, Nigeria

Untitled design (16)

On April 15, 2020, a convoy of vehicles pulled into the Government House of Kaduna state in Badiko, Kaduna. Among the convoy were several pickup trucks and an 8-wheeler lorry loaded to the brim with supplies. At a time when COVID-19 and the strategy of public lockdowns introduced to fight it are competing for which can cause more disruption to the livelihoods and survival of regular people around Kaduna, the sight of relief items making their way into the government house for onward distribution was perhaps not altogether unexpected.

Private businesses are distrustful of governments whom they see as adversarial and politically motivated

These items however, which were worth in excess of N75m, were bought and paid for by a private company that is known to help and coexist with the Kaduna State Government in a manner that is noticeably unusual for a Nigerian business. What was about to happen would elevate this relationship to a new level.

READ ALSO:  CSR – Not Charity: The Nigerian corporate’s guide to becoming indispensable

“Largest contribution so far”

Located in Gbakura community in Tafa local government area of the state, Leaf Tobacco and Commodities Nigeria Ltd (LTCN), a subsidiary of Pan African Tobacco Group (PTG) already had a long history of CSR partnerships with the state government in its host community. This time, the company had decided to go big – over N75m big – with its CSR contribution and aid the statewide relief effort. To the visible amazement of the receiving officials who included high ranking state government officials and personnel under the Commissioner of Health, the items handed over ended up being the largest contribution to the state’s COVID-19 fight to date.

The LTCN team was received at the state house by Balarabe Abbas Lawal, secretary to the state government (SSG), and the permanent secretary for special duties. The donations included 5,000 10kg bags of rice, 2,000 cartons of 10KG pasta and 2,000 units of 5-litre cooking oil. There were also medical donations including three PCR machines, two ventilators and three X-ray machines. It was also revealed at the handover that a further 500 10kg bags of rice, 300 cartons of 10kg pasta, and 300 units of 5-litre cooking oil would be sent the following week to the company’s immediate community in Gbakura.

Reacting to the donation, the SSG revealed that it was the single largest donation made to aid the state relief efforts to date. He said.

“The Kaduna State Government does not have enough words to say thank you. This donation shows that you are good partners in business. As you know, there is no state government that can do everything. On our own end, the governor has approved millions of naira that we have used to purchase relief items, and we have distributed them – and yet it’s like we have not done anything, due to the size of the population affected. CSR gestures like this will go a very long way in assisting the government of Kaduna State. We appreciate your efforts and we can only thank you very much.”

Curiously, he specifically promised the LTCN team that the relief items would be distributed to those who need them most, such as those whose daily incomes have been impacted. He also assured them that he would ensure that the medical equipment would be deployed immediately to the ICUs where they were needed. If one did not know better, one would almost think that.

LTCN-Kaduna partnership: A new paradigm for trust-based CSR relationships in Nigeria?

LTCN has been happy to adopt a role of an entity plugging the gaps in the government’s efforts as the bulk of its CSR strategy. This is in contrast with the defensive posture typical of many contemporary businesses around Nigeria which tend to treat CSR purely as a tool for positive publicity and tax reduction

Something that is typically a recurring decimal in any conversation about private sector-led community engagement efforts in Nigeria is the inference that government involvement must necessarily be kept to a minimum if maximum impact is desired. The idea is that the government’s involvement must be restricted to publicity and photo-ops because involvement at an operational level will compromise the entire effort.

This is because – whether justified or unjustified – there is a severe lack of trust on both sides of the relationship.

Private businesses are distrustful of governments whom they see as adversarial and politically motivated. LTCN for example, which has a long and successful history of direct intervention and hands-on engagement with its local community, should on paper have been unwilling to break that model by bringing the Kaduna state government directly into the distribution process for the relief materials. Yet that is exactly what it did, handing over its multimillion naira donation to the state government and receiving only its word that the donations would be utilised for the purpose they were intended. Why could this somewhat unusual decision have been made?

For one thing, the Kaduna state government has made a habit of making the right noises and signals to the private and civil society sectors on themes like corporate governance, accountability and fiscal discipline.

Without necessarily needing to deliver extraordinary results in these areas, it has thus at least given voice to what CSR partners desire the most in private-public partnerships – transparency. At a time of crisis, such a government is more likely to be considered trustworthy enough to play an equal role. Perhaps just as importantly, LTCN itself has a history of working with the Kaduna state government from a position of assumed trust, as against reflexive defensiveness.

In its CSR engagements in Gbakura which include the town’s only borehole, a new school block, school books, uniforms and supplies, and even wage top-ups and incentives for teachers paid directly from its payroll, LTCN has consistently cooperated with the Kaduna state government under the unstated but heavily implied assumption that the state is doing its best, but is overstretched and needs help. This was again in evidence here as can be surmised from the SSG’s statement.

LTCN has been happy to adopt a role of an entity plugging the gaps in the government’s efforts as the bulk of its CSR strategy. This is in contrast with the defensive posture typical of many contemporary businesses around Nigeria which tend to treat CSR purely as a tool for positive publicity and tax reduction. LTCN appears to genuinely believe in the Kaduna state government’s mission and see itself as a bona fide development partner, not just as a business entity that wants to be left alone. The COVID-19 donations have elevated this mutually trustful relationship between business and government to another level.

It may be premature to suggest that this partnership has once and for all disrupted the mutually distrustful status quo between business and government in Nigeria, especially because the personnel makeup of the government is liable to change every electoral cycle. That notwithstanding, there appears to be an interesting unfolding experiment in Kaduna state showcasing what is possible when the public and private sector maintain mutually cordial, trust-filled relations. If the Kaduna State Government does as promised and fulfils its end of the bargain, the heightened trust deposit might just signal the start of a new era of mutually beneficial public-private CSR partnerships in Nigeria.