Why rot pervades our institutions

They thus violated their duty under a 1988 federal law to provide “honest services” to clients.

Today, Skilling is serving 24-year in jail! Our government is known for employing knee-jerk solutions to resolve the twin problem of management and corruption in public institutions.

Corporate governance simply refers to the set of internal policies, rules and procedures that an institution follows to ensure that it operates in a fair, equitable and appropriate manner for its benefit as well as that of its management and shareholders.

Some of the basic tenets of effective corporate governance include a working code of conduct that binds all the staff, avoidance of conflict of interest, working audit committees, effective boards of directors among others.

You can re-evaluate your institutions around their standards and principles.

From commercial banks, stock market, public institutions the issues of corporate governance are grave.

This is why we must laud the Capital Market Authority’s decision to blacklist dishonest employees who worked in cohorts with some rogue stock brokers.

Corporate governance

Last year the central bank of Nigeria made a historic shake up in the banking sector.

A conspicuous change introduced was retiring of bank chief executives who have served for more than 10 years.

The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria was incensed by many banking outfits which were essentially, one-man shows. 

The central bank felt that when an institution does not have a sound corporate governance framework, the reliance on the judgment or the views of one person or a small group of persons becomes a very fundamental risk exposure for the bank’s survival.

It would be very interesting to see the findings of such an audit on Kenyan banks.

What lessons can businesses learn from these challenges in corporate governance?

Is your organisation the one-man show run by a know-it-all boss?