JOK Governance

Organizations, both public and private are faced with a serious challenge, the disease of corruption; an act of betrayal can be the most painful. Corruption encompasses illegal activities perpetrated by smart, trusted and polite people. Corruption is an unwelcome activity in the society and an enemy of development. Today many institutions have closed down, some suffered financial loss and individual lost their jobs because of corruption. Self-enrichment caused organizations to find themselves in the ‘intensive care unit’ waiting to take their last breath, any time. As you read this article, many organizations headed by crooks are in the ICU. So long as humanity and the devil coexist on earth, there will be no end to corruption. What we must all strive to achieve is reduction of the incidences and impact to negligible levels; and it is only possible through an effective whistle-blower's policy. Trust me, corruption is not an agenda of any organization or government; it is the ...

Good governance brings about desired results of good performance and effective control among others. To this end, IP is one of the subjects that never enjoyed cold air of many boardrooms. Many believe that nothing relates to IP within their company, but on the contrary, Mideva a Kenyan Lawyer once said, “The presence of a creative mind denotes IP existence”.   For a minute just think and think again, have you protected the entity’s logo? What about the monthly journal? How do you document company IP? What about the new software?   I challenge you today to look up for annual financial statements and see how companies do not appreciate IP.  An entity may own IP just like any other property, the difficulty is that IP is an intangible property, and this is the main reason it is often overlooked. The competitive advantage of nearly any Namibian business can be tied to its IP Assets; be it their software applications, brands, patented processes goodwill, trade secrets, co...

The face of corporate governance in the world has shifted from traditional habits of complying with rules, regulation and all governance requirements in order to stay out of troubles; to corporate governance which is driven by ethical and effective leadership that enable the organisation to achieve desired outcomes. The new era advocates for a judgment call to a practice, as to why a practice or principle should be applied? What are the end results of implementing such practices? Is the end result, the desired governing outcome? A board of directors as a governing body of an organization must first certain itself on a question of why this practice? As a matter of fact, a mere application of a governing practice doesn’t automatically result in good corporate governance. King IV Report is one of the governing tools supplementing the Company Act and SOEs Governance Act. The report highlights an outcome based approach as a method that Board directors or Trustees may adopted in sele...

Many times when scandals happen in an entity, particularly an entity established within the provisions of the Companies Act; as a Governance Practitioner, the questions I ask myself are; where were the governance checks and balances (Company Secretary, Governing body/ the board, Auditor and ethical officer among others)? Why didn’t the internal or external auditor pick up the dubious deals? Where was the company secretary? How effective is the whistle-blowers policy of the company? Why did it take so long for corruption to be detected? The four mainly recognized governance checks and balances positions are the; CEO Chairman of the Board Company Secretary  External Auditor  King IV in its own ways advocates for these positions to be independent with the aim of promoting transparency and above all to make ethical decisions. This is an international recognized control system. In Namibia, many of the state owned enterprises (SOEs) are established in terms o...