Mnangagwa to rub shoulders with Prof Mervyn King at Corporate Governance Awards

Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa and corporate governance guru Professor Mervyn King are both expected to attend the annual Excellence in Corporate Governance Awards Dinner taking place on Thursday (November 17) at Rainbow Towers in Harare.

Vice-President Mnangagwa is the guest of honour, while Professor King, who is the guest speaker, will speak on new trends in corporate governance and reporting.

Professor King is author of the King Report, one of the leading corporate governance codes in the world. Professor King's attendance at the Excellence in Corporate Governance Awards Dinner comes just weeks after the release of the King IV Report. It is expected that he will share with guests the thinking behind this latest report.

Members of the business community and government will have an opportunity to share ideas with this leading proponent of good corporate governance.

The Excellence in Corporate Governance Awards Dinner is held each year by the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators in Zimbabwe (ICSAZ), which introduced the awards in 2013 to help promote good corporate governance practices in Zimbabwe.  The theme for the awards dinner this year is Good Corporate Governance for Sustainable Development.

This year for the first time the adjudication criteria for the awards, which are based on international criteria for best practice in corporate governance, will include the best practice recommendations of Zimbabwe's own National Code on Corporate Governance, which was launched in April last year by Vice-President Mnangagwa.

For the first time too the institute will present an individual award, the Corporate Governance Professional of the Year Award, in addition to the awards for Companies Listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, Banking Institutions and State-Owned  Enterprises and Parastatals.

The inaugural awards in 2013 focused solely on companies listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange. The next year the awards were expanded to include a category for banking institutions. Last year awards were also presented to state-owned enterprises and parastatals.

All organisations that fall within one of these categories are evaluated for their corporate governance. The adjudicators, who are professionals with high analytical and research skills, make use of publicly available information to rate their corporate governance, using corporate governance scorecards developed by ICSAZ.

The Corporate Governance Awards have become an important date on Zimbabwe's corporate calendar. They have become a hallmark of excellence and provide a yardstick for best corporate governance practice. They recognise the efforts of corporate boards for effectively leading their organisations in a sustainable, innovative and ethical way.

At the same time the adjudicators' remarks highlight the shortcomings that they noticed, which provide a further yardstick for organisations to measure up to.

The institute partnered with the Government of Zimbabwe, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange and the Securities and Exchange Commission of Zimbabwe to make the awards inclusive and a barometer to gauge corporate governance practices in the three sectors evaluated by the adjudication panel.

The purpose of the individual award that is being given for the first time this year, is to demonstrate the critical role that governance professionals can play in giving effect to the National Code on Corporate Governance and ensuring the adoption of good corporate governance practices and reporting by companies.

Among the many corporate governance players, the institute will recognise the crucial role played by company secretaries in setting the tone for corporate governance by the board.