Stanbic Uganda Holdings Limited (SUHL) dominated this year’s Financial Reporting (FiRe) Awards, walking away with five honors at the awarding ceremony held in Kampala last week.
SUHL was honoured under the Integrated Report of the Year category, Corporate Governance Reporting, Sustainability Reporting and Best Listed Entity. The entity also emerged Second Runner-up in the banking services category for best Financial Reporting.
The awards are organized by the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Uganda (ICPAU) in partnership with the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) and Uganda Securities Exchange (USE).
SUHL is made up of five subsidiaries, Stanbic Bank Uganda Limited: – the leading commercial bank in the country, Stanbic Properties Limited: – a real-estate company, SBG Securities Uganda Limited: – an investment and brokerage firm, Stanbic Business Incubator Limited: – an enterprise development institution and FlyHub Uganda Limited: – a technologies and innovations company.
Cathy Adengo, the Head of Sustainability at SBUL said, “winning in five categories is no easy feat; it is a result of our commitment to doing the right business, the right way. We are proud of our achievements tonight but also equally challenged to sustain the high standards we have set for ourselves and the industry. We are particularly pleased to also win our maiden award for best sustainability reporting in our first year of implementing our sustainability strategy.”
The 2022 FiRe awards mark the 12th edition in Uganda and were held under the theme ‘Corporate Reporting: Strengthening Environmental, Social, and Governance Reporting’.
Eligible organizations including private, public and not-for-profit, participate by submitting their most recent annual reports for evaluation. The highest complying entities are recognized and rewarded. This year 108 companies participated, and they all were given feedback reports from the FiRe awards committee.
The ICPAU President, Constant Othieno Mayende said, “since the inception of FiRe awards we have noted tremendous improvement in the quality of financial reporting in Uganda. Over 900 organizations have been impacted by the awards and the committee has reported improvement disclosures as required by the standards. Organizations have also reported increased stakeholder confidence as well as increased ability to raise capital.”
Stanbic Bank has won the overall gold award in 2012, 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2019 a feat attributed to sustained high standards of transparency in financial reporting.
The Chairman of the awards committee, CPA Stephen Ineget said, “there is a need to pay more attention to environmental, social, and governance matters and for this reason, it is no longer sufficient for organizations to report merely about profitability while omitting significant aspects such as their contribution towards preserving the ecosystem within which they operate.”
He said the awards committee considered many things to choose winners including how the organization is governed in terms of board composition and active participation, and human resource issues. Other factors had to do with support to communities, environment preservation, and value creation to stakeholders.