Lagos, Nov. 22, 2023: The Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) is set to celebrate businesses, which, in spite of the multifaceted challenges they face, remain resilient and continue to survive.
NECA’s Director-General, Mr Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde, at a news conference on Tuesday in Lagos, unveiled plans for the 3rd Edition of NECA Annual Award for Excellence, to hold on Nov. 29.
“We have said consistently that Nigerian businesses are probably one of the best organisations within the context of the demonstration of resilience and doggedness.
“The resilience and doggedness of an average Nigerian business, notwithstanding the whole challenge that is faced, is exactly what we are celebrating.
“The capacity of the Nigerian business to continue to provide or meet its obligations to the regulatory authorities, its internal stakeholders, that is, the employees, the community in which they operate, is what we are celebrating.
“Also, the resilience of that same organisation to continue to maintain staff without retrenching in spite of all the multifaceted challenges that they face, is exactly what we are celebrating.
“So, this award as the theme connotes, “Against All Odds” many of those organisations are still surviving and contributing to national and global development, is what we are celebrating, “ Oyerinde said.
Also, the Chairman, Award Planning Committee, Mr Steve Olayinka, said that the intention of the award was to project sustainability.
He said this was to ensure that businesses were as competitive as those in other parts of the world.
According to him, if a business can survive in Nigeria given the myriads of challenges that it is going through, then that business can survive anywhere in the world.
“What we intend to add is to build systems that can continually make us able to survive anywhere we find ourselves as a business.
“So, the business environment is actually looking at how do we instil, empower businesses, and ensure that they are able to continue to do what they are doing.”
Olayinka said what constituted the process of the award include the way people were treated within the organisation; how documentation is done within the organisation; how regulatory controls and agencies are related in the course of carrying out businesses.
He said also that the essence of the news conference was to create awareness among businesses for them to see the award as vital to ensuring sustainability within the organised private sector.
“This press briefing is to create more awareness for this award, to let organisations know that they stand a better chance of getting more consistency in the way they run their businesses by participating in the award.
“We are trying to promote sustainability, protect businesses in Nigeria against the influx of other importation that may be competing with us, which is healthy, though; also, to ensure that we continue to do it better year in year out, “ the chairman said.
