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NewsDay

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Good governance key: Mnangagwa

Business
DIRECTORS should practise good corporate governance as it is key in enhancing credibility, stability and confidence in the economy, Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said.

DIRECTORS should practise good corporate governance as it is key in enhancing credibility, stability and confidence in the economy, Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said.

BY TATIRA ZWINOIRA

Speaking at the annual dinner for the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators in Zimbabwe (ICSAZ) 2015 last week, Mnangagwa said corporate governance was an essential ingredient to both the private and public sectors.

“As we aspire to resuscitate our economy, good corporate governance is not optional, but a prerequisite which should be embraced as an essential element of doing business in our country,” Mnangagwa said.

“This is so because good corporate governance serves to attract and safeguard investment for the realisation of national objectives.”

Mnangagwa’s calls come amid renewed efforts by the government to restore corporate governance practices that have been alien at State enterprises.

Under the corporate governance framework, senior executives at State-owned enterprises have to sign performance-based contracts.

The boards will have to sign performance contracts with the minister. The boards will have to evaluate the performance of chief executive officers on a quarterly basis. Cabinet has prescribed that the remuneration of chief executives and all staff at State enterprises should be guided by the performance of the economy, organisation’s capacity to pay and the overall performance of the incumbent.

Mnangagwa said he had been specifically tasked by President Robert Mugabe with the revival of the economy.

Mnangagwa said investors were risk averse “and therefore if we are to attract responsible capital than we should reduce risk associated with the way we do business in our country”.

The annual dinner for ICSAZ reviewed the performances of the institute throughout the past year with this edition seeing the appointment of a new president Lovemore Kadenge early in May.

ICSAZ seeks to encourage a bigger role for company secretaries to play a key role in board evaluation, in ensuring the right people are employed in the right positions and that all corporate issues are fully embraced and implemented.

Mnangagwa said bad corporate governance had a direct impact on the vulnerable members of society like “workers who fail to earn their wages through loss of jobs, customers who are affected when their suppliers fail to deliver, depositors of funds that are decimated by bank failures and society in general who suffer from a lack of service and delivery”.

“As government we have spurred the anti-corrupt commissions and the enactment of the Public Finance Management Act to bring better governance (corporate governance) to the economy,” Mnangagwa said.