Private Sector must play active part in corporate governance

Story: Boahene Asamoah

The President of the Private Enterprise Foundation (PEF), Mr Wilson Atta Krofah, has said that there is the need for the private sector to play an active role to ensure good corporate governance in the country.
“Good governance at the national level can never be attained without the involvement and support of the private sector,”he said.
At a two-day seminar on Good Corporate Governance organised for board members by PEF with support from the Centre for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), Mr Akrofah stated that “ there is the need to increase the awareness of good corporate governance practices in the country”.
The seminar attracted some Chief Executive Officers, board members and chairpersons of companies from the private sector particularly. The seminar is being facilitated by Lawfields Consulting, a legal and business management consulting firm.
He said a report on corporate governance in the country has revealed that boards in the country had been largely effective in providing strategic direction for most companies in the country.
He said the situation was prevalent in the public corporations and multinational companies which operated in the country.
The report was conducted as part of the country’s review under the African Peer Review Mechanism, in which PEF was one of the technical teams engaged to prepare a report on the status of governance in the country.
“During the last decade, the adherence to the tenets and observance of governance has been highlighted as a critical variable in promoting the right level of growth in developing countries,” he said.
A Consultant to LawFields Consulting, Dr Pikay Richardson, who is also a lecturer at the Manchester Business School in the United Kingdom, said there was the need to appoint qualified people who could run and make businesses and corporations profitable rather than appoint people who had the right political connections.
He said it was only those managers who anticipated change and devised strategic directions that would be to survive the changing trend in the world of business.
Dr Richardson mentioned some of the reasons why business failed to include the continued faith in yesterday’s models, rapid change in the business environment and management’s failures and incompetence.
He said liberalisation, policy reforms, globalisation, technological developments, industry collision and consumer sophistication were some of the major causes of change.
Dr Richardson said managers and leaders of organisations should set clear objectives, ensure a commitment to common goals and shared values, among other things, to ensure success of their companies.