Ensuring corporate governance within organisations stressed
Sunday, 1 July 2007
FE Report
Corporate governance is vital for ensuring accountability, responsibility and setting principles, which should be incorporated in every part of an organisation.
President of the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) Hossain Khaled made the observation while speaking at a seminar organised by the DCCI in association with the Centre for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), an affiliate of the US Chamber of Commerce, Washington on "principles of corporate governance for public enterprise in Bangladesh" in the city recently, said a press release.
He told the seminar that in 2003 OECD issued a white paper on corporate governance in Asia that set common policy objectives and recommendations on how to improve governance.
He also told the seminar that the DCCI had taken corporate governance as one of the important issues for preparing Economic Policy Papers and Studies in the year 2007 under its DCCI-CIPE ERRA project.
The objective of the project is to address each and every aspect of corporate governance practices in the country, he pointed out.
AK Enamul Haque and Behroz Jalil of the East West University presented a keynote paper on the issue in the seminar.
In their keynote paper, they mentioned the reasons for weak corporate governance.
These are poor bankruptcy laws, poor audit report, weak capital market, discrepancy between IAS requirement and actual practice, inconsistencies between company act, SEC requirements, compliance gap and weak regulatory system.
In their research, they showed different areas of corporate governance, such as information on shareholders' rights and disclosure of information and transparency, effectiveness of board of directors, function of the board and board meeting, frequency of board meeting, attendants and human resources.
The study tried to find out the present status of the corporate governance in Bangladesh. The study found that financial organisations were much more competent in disclosing the information where state-own enterprises (SoEs) were little bit reluctant in this connection.
The study also tried to discuss whether independent director could interfere in decision-making process.
The board members should sit to hold discussions on an average eight times or more to evaluate the findings of the report, according to the study.
The study also suggested that SoEs should improve the practice of disclosure of information to shareholders.
Financial institutions should routinely evaluate performance of chief executive officers (CEOs) and role of independent director should be emphasised, it suggested.
Additional Secretary (R&P) of the DCCI Ferdaus Ara Begum coordinated the programme.
Corporate governance is vital for ensuring accountability, responsibility and setting principles, which should be incorporated in every part of an organisation.
President of the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) Hossain Khaled made the observation while speaking at a seminar organised by the DCCI in association with the Centre for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), an affiliate of the US Chamber of Commerce, Washington on "principles of corporate governance for public enterprise in Bangladesh" in the city recently, said a press release.
He told the seminar that in 2003 OECD issued a white paper on corporate governance in Asia that set common policy objectives and recommendations on how to improve governance.
He also told the seminar that the DCCI had taken corporate governance as one of the important issues for preparing Economic Policy Papers and Studies in the year 2007 under its DCCI-CIPE ERRA project.
The objective of the project is to address each and every aspect of corporate governance practices in the country, he pointed out.
AK Enamul Haque and Behroz Jalil of the East West University presented a keynote paper on the issue in the seminar.
In their keynote paper, they mentioned the reasons for weak corporate governance.
These are poor bankruptcy laws, poor audit report, weak capital market, discrepancy between IAS requirement and actual practice, inconsistencies between company act, SEC requirements, compliance gap and weak regulatory system.
In their research, they showed different areas of corporate governance, such as information on shareholders' rights and disclosure of information and transparency, effectiveness of board of directors, function of the board and board meeting, frequency of board meeting, attendants and human resources.
The study tried to find out the present status of the corporate governance in Bangladesh. The study found that financial organisations were much more competent in disclosing the information where state-own enterprises (SoEs) were little bit reluctant in this connection.
The study also tried to discuss whether independent director could interfere in decision-making process.
The board members should sit to hold discussions on an average eight times or more to evaluate the findings of the report, according to the study.
The study also suggested that SoEs should improve the practice of disclosure of information to shareholders.
Financial institutions should routinely evaluate performance of chief executive officers (CEOs) and role of independent director should be emphasised, it suggested.
Additional Secretary (R&P) of the DCCI Ferdaus Ara Begum coordinated the programme.