I cannot understand the present outcry at the nomination of a certain Dulthumun - brought to national prominence and fame by the “katori” incident- as Director on the board of.....
All Govts without exception have been abusing the system by appointing cronies on most of these boards.
Effective corporate governance requires strong boards composed of qualified and competent members exercising objective and independent judgement to guide strategy development and monitor management. The key challenge in the nomination process of directors to govt bodies and SOEs’ boards is to prevent the process to degenerate into a situation characterized as “political influence interference”.
The Office of Public Sector Governance,(under the PMO then), in close collaboration with the World Bank (WB), had worked out and submitted to both the Ramgoolam and Jugnauth (Bhadain being the Minister concerned) governments a structured process for nominating directors on SOE and other govt boards including the proposal for the setting up a register for a Director’s Database for SOEs and other govt bodies/institutions.
The main elements of putting in place a transparent nomination process for the directors of boards were:
-developing clear selection criteria,
-professionalizing the nomination process and
-enhancing public scrutiny of the results
(For greater detail please consult a previous article titled”
A structured process for nominating SOE boards, 2019”
Both regimes had discarded these suggestions/recommendations.
We believe that such a structured nomination process stand a better chance of restricting governmental or political interference than the parliamentary body being proposed by the opposition.
Some countries, such as Australia, New Zealand and Sweden, have set up such structured and clearly skill-based nomination systems.
