Public Board Members must justify appointments

Mrs Florence Hope-Wudu, Managing Consultant of Purple Almond Consulting, a leading corporate governance firm, has admonished Members of Boards of public organisations to add value to their organisations to justify their appointments.

She made this statement at a three-day leadership and governance training Programme for boards of teaching hospitals, aimed at enhancing the governance systems and structures in the teaching hospitals.

She said the Board must improve the effectiveness and efficiency of boards of directors and senior management, towards achieving health sector objectives.

Mrs Hope-Wudu encouraged members of boards to consider their appointment as a unique opportunity to serve Ghana and add value to their respective institutions and because boards played critical roles in the progress of organisations, the members must live up to expectation.

Adding that, “Often, people see public board appointments as rewards for political loyalty.

“Even if this were so, board members should deliver on their mandate to justify their qualification onto public boards, being mindful of the fact that over 10 million Ghanaians may have qualified for the same appointments,”

Nana Kwabena Adjei-Mensah, Chief Director of Ministry of Health, also charged the health sector agencies to take stringent efforts towards tackling the systemic causes of poor governance in the health sector.

“Leadership and Governance in health is being increasingly regarded as a salient theme on the development agenda and one of the building blocks of Health System Strengthening.

“Leadership and governance in building a health system involve ensuring that strategic policy frameworks exist and are combined with effective oversight, coalition-building, regulation, attention to system design and accountability.

“The need for greater accountability arises both from increased funding and a growing demand to demonstrate results,” he observed.

Nana Adjei-Mensah said there were evidence of governance shortfalls in Ghana’s health sector, citing weak accountability and performance management systems, poor Intra headquarters and inter agency operational coordination.

He said collaboration and partnership challenges leading to silo planning and parallel execution of programmes, weak health sector multi-actor policy development, consistency, ownership and implementation framework, and weak link between resource mobilisation, allocation, utilisation and performance outcomes, among others.

“There is the need for these issues to be addressed to ensure sustained peak performance of the sector. A responsive and accountable governance system is integral in achieving universal health coverage,” he stressed.

The training for the boards of the teaching hospitals, he said, was the beginning of implementing a general plan to enhance the governance and management systems in the public health sector.

He said, results expected at the end of the training, included; improved inter-agency coordination and harmonisation, enhanced leadership and governance of agency boards, better understanding of stewardship and accountability roles of the agencies of the ministry.

He said the training also sought to strengthen relationship between health agencies and boards of the teaching hospitals, as well as enhance board effectiveness, decision-making and conflict resolution skills.

The training which was facilitated by Purple Almond Consulting also focused on cooperate governance basics, enhancing boardroom effectiveness and skills, public financial management, leadership skills for conflict resolution, measuring board performance, and board governance in procurement.