Philip Chiyangwa's Zeco ranked worst governed firm

ZECO Holdings was ranked the worst governed company on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange at the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators of Zimbabwe awards which were held recently.  

Zeco is involved in engineering, fabrication and plastic blow moulding. The company has not yet published its results for the June period and this is nothing new as most of its results since its listing have not been published within the stipulated time.

Zeco has also not held an annual general meeting in the past years with the last one held in 2010. Chief executives and board members are constantly changing. As a result the company scored badly on the adjudication template prepared by the institution. The adjudication process considered three categories; Shareholder protection, shareholder practices and sustainability reporting and best board practices.

The major themes that came out during evaluation and assessment under shareholder treatment was that AGM notices were mostly standard and brief. The institution noted that a few companies made attempts to give more information on normal and special business.

In this category related party disclosures were mostly driven by IFRS reporting. Very few companies provided extra information.

However, most analysts have questioned Zeco's continued listing on the ZSE as the company is by and large controlled and run by businessman Philip Chiyangwa ignoring the basic rules of corporate governance. The company has a 0,25 percent liquidity on the ZSE.

Gold mining company Falgold was judged as having the second worst corporate governance followed by two more mining companies Hwange and Rio- Zim.

Turnall Holdings won the trophy for the best governed company and British American Tobacco Zimbabwe came second while Econet Wireless came third.