By Cathy Maulidi:
Half of country’s public institutions and state-owned corporations are currently being run without board of directors following the expiry of their tenure.
Information sourced by Malawi News indicates that some boards’ tenure expired months ago and some last month.
Among the institutions running without boards are Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra), Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) and Tobacco Commission (TC).
Analysts have since described this as a sign of poor governance, saying boards are important to operations of institutions.
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A good governance analyst, Wonderful Mkutche, said this is lack of seriousness on the part of the government as it knew from the start that the tenure for the boards would end at a certain point and that would call for re-constitution.
“We need the boards to be in place as they are vital for the functioning of the parastatals which are an integral part of the delivery of public service.
“Government knew about end of the tenure for the boards and they needed to have acted in time by appointing the new board members to replace the old ones. There are certain decisions in these institutions that solely wait upon the board and this means that there is a halt to some activities which affects those who seek services from these institutions,” Mkutche said.
Centre for Social Accountability and Transparency Executive Director Willy Kambwandira said the country is in a dangerous situation as far as public service delivery is concerned.
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“This is a very dangerous situation and it is recipe for abuse, fraud and corruption in the parastatals. The President should act with speed to address the situation as it does not only expose the parastatals to abuse, but it is also bad governance,” he said.
Kambwandira said boards provide checks and balances.
“One can only speculate that people are deliberately creating chaos to benefit from it,” Kambwandira said.
Government spokesperson Moses Kunkuyu has since said re- constitution of the boards is in progress and will be completed soon.
“It has to be understood that government takes great care in the identification of people to be appointed as board members to ensure that this is done in accordance with the law.
“I am pleased to inform you that some of the boards that expired on 22nd September have already been reconstituted and the Comptroller of Statutory Corporations will soon be organizing corporate governance training for them to commence work,” Kunkuyu said.
