The Chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Commission, CONAC, Rev. Dieudonné Massi Gams, has hailed the General Manager of the National Oil Refining Company, SONARA, Ibrahim Talba Malla, for his bold step to launch an anti-corruption drive in his company.

“We want to thank SONARA for this good initiative because we think that if every other company in Cameroon, that is in charge of managing State property or funds were to do like SONARA, then, we shall go a long way to win the war against corruption,” Massi Gams stated.

The man saddled with the task of ridding corruption in Cameroon was speaking on March 13 at the SONARA Club House during the launching of the Company’s Code of Ethics.

The Code of Ethics is a major instrument to keep SONARA free from corruption.

“In SONARA, we have understood that we cannot sustainably develop without sharing a certain number of common values. These values, which constitute the basis of our ethics policy, are: safety, professionalism, equity, team spirit and discipline,” the GM stated.

The Ethics Code is a 32-page document in which a set of rules and principles have been enshrined and of which every SONARA staff and business partner and everyone else doing business with SONARA, shall be bound to respect. Simply put, it is the Company’s sign post or compass aimed at directing everyone towards a brighter and more successful future for SONARA.

It was developed by the GM with the contribution of some of his staff and also with inputs from CONAC. The GM, on October 30, 2014, signed the final document and, with its launching, every worker is expected to sign an undertaking to work and abide by the code.

“The goal is to improve performance and promote the image of SONARA, as well as develop tools that contribute to stimulating ethical professional behaviour,” the preamble of the code reads in part.

Meantime, in a bid to ensure proper implementation of the code, the GM set up an anti-corruption watchdog unit in the refinery known as the “Anti-Corruption and Ethics Promotion Unit, ACEPU, headed by SONARA’s Technical Adviser, Evelyn Martins.

“The Code of Ethics that we are launching today, actually spells out all the guiding principles that we expect SONARA workers to be guided by,” she said.

SONARA’s ACEPU Chairperson said they were going to sensitise all their workers in 2015 on all the principles, the dos and the don’ts that are inherent in the code. She added that the code was not just a guide for the workers but “for all clientele, suppliers and even administrators who have anything to do with SONARA.”

Besides ACEPU, which shall be acting as a watchdog, the code itself has set forth a “whistle-blowing” option whereby every staff or third party can raise the alarm “regarding practices or behaviours that have been laid down in the code.”

Asked about some of the prominent aspects that the code stands to promote as far as the anti-corruption fight is concerned, Martins said, “For instance, you are not supposed to find yourself in a situation where you are working against the interest of the company; you are not supposed to find yourself as a supplier in the company when you are not transparent or have not followed the right procedures for transparency as laid down in the code of public contracts. Also, one is not supposed to engage in any acts of indiscipline that run contrary to the interests of the Company.”

On the mechanism for sanctions, Martins said their interest was to, first of all, sensitise the workers on the code, and if there are any cases of misconduct, they, surely, will have to call the worker to order. She added that sanctions might only come as a last option in the event of outright cases of fraud.