WYLDE International is now a Blue Company Certified, which is a certificate given to companies that have upheld high ethical business practice. They join 400 other blue certified companies which form a community of ethical businesses being held to high accountability standards. According to Managing Director of WYLDE International, Mr Joram Mwinamo, “WYLDE has always been intentional about doing business ethically, this certification is an external validation of who we have always been. We believe that running a business with integrity is the best way to create a long-lasting business that builds value and overcomes the challenges of doing business in a market.”
The Blue Company project began in 2018 by Mr. Nizar Juma, with the objective of involving the private sector in fighting corruption and keeping transgressors accountable. The Blue Company project has partnered with the UNODC Regional Office of East Africa to empower organisations in fighting corruption by putting in place anti-bribery and whistleblowing policies and guidelines.
During the hand-over ceremony of the Blue Certificate to Wylde International, Blue Company’s Executive Board Member, Dr. Julius Kipng’etich said, if SMEs operate under good governance and use integrity as their shield, they will attract funding from all over the world,
and be able to progress without taking shortcuts. The largest drawback to progress in Africa is corruption. The Blue company project is about encouraging companies to use voluntarily us soft skills of pricking their own conscience, being self-compliant and choosing to participate in good governance, because good governance pays all the time and creates great companies and great nations.”
According to Blue Company, “Corruption continues to be an obstacle to our economy as it impedes innovation, affects the allocation of resources leading to widening income disparities, slows economic development and results in an overall increase in the cost of doing business.” The Global Corruption Index for 2018 indicated that Kenya obtained a score of 27 out of 100, a decline from 28 points scored in 2017.
The statistics therefore demonstrate that efforts to tackle corruption have not yielded results. There is therefore a need by all stakeholders to strengthen institutions that maintain checks and balances over political power; enforce anti-corruption legislation; and support civil society.
Other companies in East Africa which are Blue Company certified are KEPSA, Private Sector Association of Uganda, Kenya Bankers Association, UN Global Compact, Kenya Association of Hotel Keepers.
WYLDE International has been working with SMEs for that last 15 years and in February 2020, they invested in a Sh50 million in the first one stop shop entrepreneurs center in the Nairobi dubbed SNDBX. At the SNDBX, SMEs get access to coaching, mentoring and training from 20 professional experts offering services such as HR, Tax, legal, branding, marketing and PR, debt collection, innovation, governance and risk management among others. Kenya's SME sector constitutes 98 percent of the businesses in Kenya and provides 30 percent of annual employment.