Investigating the compliance of the City of Windhoek to king IV corporate governance principles from 2018 -2020
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Date
2021
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University of Namibia
Abstract
Corporate Governance remains a serious challenge in Namibia, especially in the
public sector organisations including local authorities. For best practices in corporate governance local authorities are guided by the Act No. 23 of 1992 on local
authorities, NamCode and the South African King IV. However, despite having these
instruments, the City of Windhoek seems to be experiencing challenges in complying with corporate governance. In particular, the City of Windhoek is failing
to keep to corporate governance areas and attending to non-corporate issues, a
practice which is undermining effective delivery of the council strategy. It is against
this background that a qualitative descriptive study was conducted to investigate the City of Windhoek compliance with King IV municipal corporate governance
principles. The study analysed a set of 36 council meeting agendas and minutes from 2018 t0 2020 to determine compliance to corporate governance business. The same analysis sought to establish the council board attention to non-corporate governance issues.
Data from the council meetings minutes were analysed using content
analysis. The study also interviewed five departmental heads to determine the extent to which the board is involved in non- corporate governance issues. Data from interviews was analysed using thematic data analysis.
Findings from analysis of the council board agendas and minutes revealed that the
City of Windhoek complies with King IV corporate governance principles which
include policy making, strategic planning, risks planning and management,
stakeholder engagement and management and supervision and monitoring the
municipal business. The study also established that the City of Windhoek carries out the fiduciary responsibilities as guided by the Act No. 23 of 1992 on local
authorities. However, the study established that the board over step into non corporate governance operations which are under department managers. Failure to
observe separation of responsibilities was found to negatively affect the character of
the board and creating conflict with operations management. Based on these
findings, the study recommended the need for the City of Windhoek to revisit its
responsibilities and as well analyse the clause on separation of responsibilities. In
addition, the study recommended the City of Windhoek board to consider its
engagement and communication strategy with the operations department so as to
define the link between the two functions.
Description
A research thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Business Administration (Management Strategy)
Keywords
Corporate governance, Fiduciary, Transparency, Compliance, King IV, NamCode