Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Prof. Stephen Adei has lamented that Ghana is failing at all levels regarding ethical issues related to corporate governance.
According to him, most private and public institution restrict themselves to scholarly qualifications when they should be focusing on the character, competence, and ethical values of individuals.
“We have restricted qualification to PhD and other things. No…The first has to do with character qualification. Then competence. You don’t appoint people because she is a saint, if he doesn’t understand he must also be able to read the financials.” He posited.
He was to speaking at the just ended Ghana CEO Summit held in Accra. The theme for the panel discussion was “Ethics & Corporate Governance: How Corporate Governance can ensure that high ethical standards are met to restore”.
The topic indicated that transparent corporate governance must be seen as a system which seeks to establish the general frameworks and guidelines for managers of large companies by enforcing the values of transparency, responsibility and professionalism.
But the Professor stated that components of corporate governance which are not embedded in the goals of an institutions, calls for a big problem which includes a weak system and in the long run a collapsed company.
He purported that the reason for these avoidable failures some institutions face are a result of “family and friends” culture thus by affiliation unqualified persons are tasked with the role of managers, board of directors, etc.
Prof Adei bringing to light common mistakes made by CEOs said, “The preponderance of our companies are SMEs and family owned and even when they are bigger. That is why we tend to have one generational company because the level of corperate governance there is weak and that of the state enterprise is not something to write home about”.
He opined that although there are “good run companies in Ghana”, appointments must be done based on one who understand the mission and vision as well as care for the company.
