Heineken in Africa
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 14 March 2019
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The brewer has been accused of complicity with Africa's murkiest politics, and of failing to protect female brand promoters from sexual harassment. But can a company really separate itself from its political environment?
Manuela Saragosa hears from the Dutch investigative journalist Olivier van Beemen, whose book Heineken in Africa makes multiple accusations against the company, including collusion with the regimes of Burundi and DR Congo. Plus Heineken provides its response.
But is it a case of damned if you do, and damned if you don't? When a company finds that it cannot control what is happening on the ground in a politically challenging country, should it simply pull out of the country altogether? Human rights lawyer Elise Groulx Diggs of Doughty Street Chambers gives us her view.
(Picture: Heineken logo on a beer bottle; Credit: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Manuel Saragossa. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. Coming up, Heineken in Africa, a powerful brew or a bitter one? |
| 0:11.8 | In Burundi, a small country in the center of Africa, Heineken is very deeply involved with the current dictatorship there. |
| 0:20.5 | We hear what Heineken has to say to claims about how it conducts its business in Africa. |
| 0:25.9 | But is it a case of damned if it does and damned if it doesn't? |
| 0:29.9 | It's important that business go into these zones to bring back economic development. |
| 0:34.7 | But when a business decides to go into these zones, they have to do extra due diligence. |
| 0:41.2 | That's all here in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:48.1 | Heineken is one of the world's most recognized global brands. |
| 0:52.0 | The brew that, according to its famous UK advertisement campaign, |
| 0:56.0 | refreshes the parts that other beers cannot reach. |
| 0:58.8 | It's also one of the Netherlands's most prized companies, a top export. |
| 1:03.3 | And it has a big presence in Africa, of which it's proud, |
| 1:06.6 | as this promotional video from its website makes clear. |
| 1:16.9 | Music as this promotional video from its website makes clear. From the farm to the brewery, from lab workers to mechanics and truck drivers, |
| 1:33.9 | from marketeers and office workers, to doctors who take care of our employees and their families, sales representatives, and bartenders. Hineken has operated in Africa for more than a hundred years, |
| 1:48.0 | creating jobs, improving livelihoods and serving quality beers. |
| 1:57.5 | That from Heineken's website, but this golden boy of the Dutch corporate scene was given something of a kicking by Olivia von Beman, a Dutch investigative journalist when he published a book about the company's activities in Africa a couple of years ago. |
| 2:12.4 | It caused a furor in the Netherlands when it was published and now a new re-edited version of the book has been |
| 2:18.5 | published in English, titled very simply Heineken in Africa. It includes claims about how |
| 2:24.0 | Heineken conducted its business during some of the worst political atrocities on the continent. |
| 2:29.3 | We'll hear Heineken's response in just a moment and we'll discuss the difficulties of operating |
| 2:33.7 | in politically challenging |
... |
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