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The Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators in Zimbabwe has launched awards for excellence in corporate governance that seek to recognise individuals and organisations that excel in this field.ICSAZ chief executive and secretary Mr Farai Musamba, who launched the awards recently, said the inaugural awards scheduled for November 14 will become an annual event.
“In our view, corporate governance serves to determine what society considers to be the acceptable standards of corporate behaviour and to ensure that companies comply with those standards and are held to account for their corporate actions.
“Thus the importance of governance professionals in any economy, big or small, cannot be overemphasised and for emerging market countries like Zimbabwe improving corporate governance can serve a number of important public policy objectives,” he said.
Investor confidence from both local and foreign potential investors is also being threatened by weak corporate governance frameworks hence the need to come up with measures to counter the problem.
His body decided to promote corporate governance through the excellence in corporate governance awards. The categories are best shareholder treatment award, best stakeholder practices and sustainability reporting award, best board practices award and overall best-governed company award.
For individuals there is the governance professional of the year award which is open to board members, company secretaries or legal counsels, risk managers, financial controllers and compliance officers or managers.
Mr Musamba explained that the inaugural awards will focus on companies listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange which published annual reports for the 2012 financial year and are still trading on the bourse.
“It is our hope that the recipients of these awards will be seen to exemplify excellence in corporate governance as expounded by various codes presently recognised for benchmarking good corporate governance in Zimbabwe.
“The expectation of the institute is that the awards will become a reference point in the market, much to the benefit of investors,” he said.
Online Reporter