SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Thaba has a strong corporate social responsibility policy that is geared towards supporting local communities to better the lives of its people. We don’t take for granted the warm welcome the community has accorded us, and we intend to strengthen this bond by creating opportunities for the people around us.
The company has offered financial support to schools, tourism organizations, orphanages, sports teams, local community infrastructure projects, just to mention a few. For many of these beneficiaries, Thaba’s contribution remains a welcome intervention that offers them a new lease of life.
As a result of our corporate social responsibility, we have seen an increase in student enrolment at the schools we support, with more girls taking up education. We have also witnessed an improvement in the performance of the schools after our intervention.
We have also seen more youths take their sports seriously and pursue a brighter future.
Thaba remains a key financial sponsor of mining organizations that seek to promote the sector, and supports other forms of engagements that bring all the players involved in the sector for honest and fruitful talks.
As part of a larger group of organizations, some of the company’s staff continue to participate in numerous meetings with government officials to ensure that the country has the best regulations for all the players involved.
We believe in paying our fair share of revenue to the government as stipulated in the laws of the land. We recognize the impact of corporate revenue towards the improvement of social services and infrastructure.
Thaba is committed towards promoting national content through the use of local resources for its operations. It is mandatory that at all times more than 70% of our staff will be Ugandans. This way, we are sure of meeting one of our objectives of transferring skills to nationals.
Considering that Uganda is endowed with numerous minerals, we believe that the skills we transfer to our staff should create a new generation of local entrepreneurs in the precious metals industry.
IMPACT
Thaba’s presence in the market has contributed towards the growth of transparency in the industry. The company has been critical in transforming the industry for refined gold from an informal and opaque setting to a vibrant and more professional industry, where products are easily tracked by Uganda’s regulatory bodies.
This way, the country has seen a drop in its administrative costs of regulating the industry, while tax authorities have found it easy to monitor consignments of gold. Partly because of the company’s sponsorship packages, mining organizations have managed to hold activities that attract more investments in the industry, engage government on putting in place legislation that conforms to international standards, and call for more participation of Ugandans in the sector.