Corporate governance vital for economic growth: PSC
PUBLIC Service Commission chairperson Vincent Hungwe has described corporate governance as a vital cog in driving economic growth and development.
Hungwe said this in a speech read on his behalf at the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators in Zimbabwe (ICSAZ) annual corporate governance awards ceremony on Wednesday.
Hungwe commended ICSAZ for its admission to the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC).
“As you honour corporate excellence today, in your 9th year running of this award ceremony, I note with gratification the strides that the association has been able to make in the past year.
“You as ICSAZ has continued to scale heights and break new ground,” Hungwe said.
“Most notably, 2020 saw ICSAZ, in a truly historic development, admitted to IFAC as an associate member.
“IFAC membership is a recognised hallmark of high-quality professional accountancy. And because the requirements for IFAC membership include the adoption of international standards and support for their implementation, thereby demonstrating the member organisation’s expertise in and commitment to international standards, best practice, good governance and serving the public interest, this set a very high bar for the year 2021 in general for ICSAZ, the 9th 2021 excellence in corporate governance awards in particular; and, indeed, the future of work in corporate governance henceforth.”
“Corporate governance can very well be located among the many drivers of economic performance, economic growth and economic development. And the very fact that we are gathered at this occasion to recognise corporate governance excellence speaks volumes for how ready you all are for the Zimbabwe we are all working to bring forth with Vision 2030,” he said.
CBZ Holdings Limited won the Best Corporate Governance Disclosure award.
It also emerged as the winner in the Best Shareholder Treatment Disclosures category.
CBZ Bank won the Best Board Governance Practices Disclosure, Best Risk Management Disclosures and Overall Best Corporate Governance Disclosures by Banking Institutions awards.
Innscor Africa Limited won the Best Stakeholder Practices and Sustainability Reporting Disclosures while African Sun Limited won the Best Board Practices Disclosures award.
First Mutual Holdings Limited won the Best Corporate Governance Disclosures award, whereas TelOne (Pvt) Limited won the Best Corporate Governance Disclosures award in the State-owned entities and parastatals category.
ICSAZ chief executive officer and secretary Lovemore Gomera said corporate governance disclosures should be sufficiently detailed and should not lead readers to make inferences.
“Most participating entities are still to embrace sustainability reporting which means that they do not integrate their financial to non-financial information.
“There are general disparities in disclosures across participants under all the four categories. There is high level of non-disclosure of some information which should ordinarily be made available to stakeholders.
“There is a general need for all reporting entities to avail reasonable and detailed information to stakeholders to improve on transparency, good governance and ethical standards, while striking a balance of these disclosures with business intelligence information,” he said.