The National Treasury building in Nairobi. FILE PHOTO | NMG
What you need to know:
According to the Mwongozo Code of Conduct for State Corporations decreed by President Uhuru Kenyatta, the board membership for all State Corporations must be between seven and nine members.
The Code says the quorum for Board meetings must be five Members, where the total Board membership is eight to nine and four where the total membership is seven and below.
This is aimed at ensuring effective oversight of State agencies and reducing the risk management of State Corporations undertaking unilateral decisions without input from the board.
The Privatisation Commission is operating without a fully constituted board, lacking quorum to execute its mandate.
The agency charged with spearheading the sale of State-owned enterprises presently only has former Member of Parliament Paul Otuoma as chair and Joseph Tito, recently reappointed to the board by Treasury secretary Ukur Yatani after the terms of former board members expired last June.
The lack of a fully constituted board risks grounding the country's privatisation agenda including much-delayed privatisation of sugar millers by the agency headed by Joseph Koskey.
Mr Yatani did not respond to Business Daily queries on the delayed appointment of members to fill the legally required threshold by press time. Neither did Mr Koskey and Mr Otuoma.
The Attorney-General and Treasury Secretary are also represented on the board.
According to the Mwongozo Code of Conduct for State Corporations decreed by President Uhuru Kenyatta, the board membership for all State Corporations must be between seven and nine members.
The Code says the quorum for Board meetings must be five Members, where the total Board membership is eight to nine and four where the total membership is seven and below.
This is aimed at ensuring effective oversight of State agencies and reducing the risk management of State Corporations undertaking unilateral decisions without input from the board.
In 2018, the Parliamentary Investment Committee (PIC) expressed concern that failure by the Executive to fully constitute some boards had granted the management of some of the parastatals leeway to undertake mega projects that require approval of the boards.
The privatisation agency has only managed to conclude a single deal—that is the Kenya Wine Agencies Limited (Kwal) in over a decade. The last successful privatisation by Government was the Safaricom IPO.
Parastatals the government approved for sale include Consolidated Bank of Kenya, Kenya Meat Commission, Development Bank of Kenya, East African Portland Cement and five sugar millers Chemelil, Sony, Nzoia, Miwani and Muhoroni.
PAYE Tax Calculator
Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
