By Amb. Emmanuel Mwamba
Corporate Governance Under atrack
Board Members are usually persons of high caliber professionals with requisite industry and corporate experience, and are distinguished non-partisan persons with personal good record and help bring supervisory role to Chief Executive Officers and their management and staff.
President Hakainde Hichilema didn’t take the above as necessary consideration when he proceeded to dissolve and flush out all boards of state-owned enterprises and state agencies as soon as he assumed power.
He could be forgiven as he was expected to put up his own teams.
The previous members were deemed or accused of being members of the Patriotic Front.
It is therefore interesting that those he since appointed are now being fired or are resigning just a few months into their roles.
I can guarantee you that there is probably nothing wrong with the board members.
It’s with the President who is usually reported to interfere, meddle, encroaches, undermines, micro-manages and ignores reporting structure and corporate hierachy in the name of attempting to bring efficiency.
Just note the Energy meeting he personally hosts especially with investors, probably meetings that should be done or held by his boards or CEOs at the Ministry of Energy, or ZDA, IDC, or ERB, or ZESCO, or REA and others.
It is no wonder that there has been dismissals or resignations in such a short period.
Those that recently resigned or fired include;
- Perry Mapani-CEO-IDC.
- Arthur Ndhlovu -IDC.
- Nitesh Patel-IDC
- Dolika Banda-ZCCM-IH Board Chairperson.
- Jack Kalala -ZNBC Board Chairperson ( ratified by Parliament).
- Brenda Likonge Makai Mulenga -Rural Electrification Authority( REA) Board Chairperson.
Clearly this is a worrying trend.
We must ensure that we provide for statutory security of tenure and insulate such members from executive embarrassment if we are to secure the investment and roles that agencies and state-owned enterprises play in the growth of our economy.