Turnall judged best governed company on ZSE

Published: 15 November 2013

Turnall Holdings won the trophy for the Best Governed Company on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange in the inaugural Excellence in Corporate Governance Awards. British American Tobacco came second. Econet Wireless came third.

Turnall also won the Sustainability Reporting Award, with Dairibord Holdings coming second in this category and Mwana Africa third.

Meikles won the Best Shareholder Treatment award, with Econet Wireless coming second in this category and British Amercan Tobacco third.

The Best Board Practices Award went to British American Tobacco, with Turnall Holdings coming second in this category and Border Timbers coming third.

The awards, which were initiated by the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators in Zimbabwe to promote good corporate governance, were presented on Thursday evening at an awards dinner hosted by the Institute at Cresta Lodge in Harare.

All currently trading Zimbabwe Stock Exchange listed companies which published annual reports in 2012 were evaluated for the awards.

Welcoming guests to the awards dinner, Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators in Zimbabwe president Glovah Madzima said the institute intended expanding the awards to other sectors of the economy.

"Sectors like the State Owned Enterprises, SMEs and NGOs will be added to this mix as the awards develop," Mr Madzima said.

Deputy Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Kupukile Mlambo said he hoped the Excellence in Corporate Governance Awards would usher in a new era of transparency and accountability.

"It has now become common practice that, instead of reporting what they did, companies report what they are expected to do, as if they have done it in terms of good corporate governance practices.

"We hope these awards will change that culture and the mind-set of those who govern our companies so that they will do the right thing more as a calling than just a means of complying with regulations," he said.

He said he hoped that for next year's awards it might be possible to use Zimbabwe's own code of corporate governance, which he understood would be published soon.

"Indeed the National Code on Corporate Governance will usher in a new era in corporate governance in Zimbabwe as we are going to have a local yardstick which meets international standards to guide our corporates," he said.

Summarising the findings of the adjudicators, who evaluated the companies on the basis of their annual reports and other information in the public domain, ICSAZ chief executive Farai Musamba said some companies failed to publish annual reports, publishing instead abridged reports with insufficient information for the purposes of adjudication.

He said detailed disclosures came from the same few companies, as evidenced by their high scores for each award category.

The composition of most boards on the surface did not appear to be balanced. Sixty percent of the board membership of Zimbabwe Stock Exchange listed companies were from one profession. Gender and age balance also needed to be worked on.

"The winners of the Annual Excellence in Corporate Governance Awards will be seen to exemplify excellence in corporate governance," he said.

He said all companies on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange were considered. He said the rankings of all companies would be shown on the institute's web-site on Monday (November 18).

Mr Musamba said board meeting attendance by directors averaged 45 percent. Most corporate boards did not disclose full information to enable the identification of beneficial share ownership. Most companies failed to include board committee reports in their annual reports, despite reporting the existence of such committees.

It was decided not to present a Corporate Governance Practitioner of the Year Award this year, as it was felt this award category scorecard needed some refinement.

It would, however, been included in next year's awards, Mr Musamba said.

- Mike Hamilton