Ministry launches corporate governance annual awards

in conjunction with the Institute of Directors Zimbabwe.
State Enterprises and Parastatals Deputy Minister Walter Chidakwa said the awards seek to celebrate and recognise achievements by state enterprises and parastatals in Zimbabwe.
“The awards further seek to recognise those entities that would have distinguished themselves in implementing and practising good corporate governance as evidenced by their operational performance, among other things.
“This year’s awards will take into account the 2010 operational performance together with that of the first half of 2011 and only performance falling in this period will be considered,” he said.
He said the awards ceremony will be held on a date and venue to be announced in due course.
Deputy Minister Chidakwa added that a selection criteria has been established and covers such key corporate governance areas as board effectiveness, clarity, implementation and evaluation of strategy, the control environment and financial performance among others.
He indicated that to ensure fairness, three categories have been identified and these are commercial state enterprises, commercial parastatals and social/ non-commercial parastatals.
“It is my sincere hope that the State enterprises and parastatals will seize the opportunity to assure us in Government and, indeed other stakeholders that the public entities are under sound stewardship by contesting these awards, which are, in fact, their awards, in numbers.
“As these are the inaugural awards, they will play a critically important role in establishing baseline data regarding where these entities were at the introduction of the Corporate Governance Framework for State Enterprises and Parastatals,” said Mr Chidakwa.
He added that these have been introduced following the launch of the Corporate Governance Framework for State Enterprises and Parastatals last year.
“The main objective of the framework is to inculcate a culture of good corporate governance practices in all public entities.
“In implementing this framework, roll out workshops ere held from July 19 to 28 to board members and senior management of state enterprises and parastatals,” he said.
Mr Chidakwa added that following the launch and roll out programmes of the framework, the ministry is dedicated to entrenching a culture of good corporate governance practices and enforcing compliance to corporate governance principles in state enterprises and parastatals hence introduction of the awards.