TGMI, TIS, and PEMC team up for corporate governance master class |01 September 2021

Mr Chetty officially launching the training (Photos: Louis Toussaint)

A group of around 20 board members, board secretaries and other professionals from public enterprises yesterday joined The Guy Morel Institute (TGMI), the Public Enterprises Monitoring Commission (PEMC), and Transparency Initiative Seychelles for a two-day Master class on corporate governance.

With the focus on the fundamentals of corporate governance, the workshop was targeting both existing and newly appointed board members, as well as senior executives and top management. The attendees were from Air Seychelles, the Seychelles Pension Fund (SPF), the Housing Finance Company (HFC), Property Management Company (PMC) and Islands Development Company (IDC), among others.

To kick off the workshop, executive director of TGMI, Shella Mohideen, spoke of the importance of ongoing professional development, noting that the objective of the two days is to allow participants to reflect, engage in fruitful discussions and to help each other find solutions to challenges they are faced with.

“We are offering this training as a partnership, because as we know, there has been a lot of talk about boards lately, and we have seen the closure of some boards as well. Responding to what is going on, I think there is a need for us to beef up our capacity, to reflect on our roles and responsibilities, for us to step up and deliver as per our various roles and responsibilities,” Ms Mohideen noted.

Chief executive officer of the PEMC and facilitator of the programme, Georges Tirant, stated that corporate governance and the role of board members are critical to the long-term success of corporate entities.

“High standards of corporate governance in public enterprises, whether commercial or non-commercial, are very important in ensuring a positive contribution to the country’s overall economic efficiency, competitiveness and social cohesion,” Mr Tirant said.

He further elaborated on the rationale of the programme to highlight the need to bridge the gap and disconnect between some boards and top-level management of entities, which render board ineffective in discharging their duties.

The training was officially launched by chairperson of TIS, Chrystold Chetty.

Over the course of the two days of interactive sessions, participants will together explore corporate governance through scenario-based discussions, through different modules.

Yesterday, they explored the making of effective boards, the roles and responsibilities of boards and members, the value of good governance, effective decision-making and the importance of making use of the right mix of skills.

Through today, facilitators will take participants through governance and management, the relationship between boards, CEOs and the management teams of entities, ethical handling of conflicts of interest and management risks.

A certificate of attendance will be issued by TGMI upon completion of the master class.

Laura Pillay