By Ademola Alawiye

Thursday, 25 Nov 2010

The President, Society for Corporate Governance Nigeria, Dr. Christopher Kolade, and other prominent players in the financial sector have called on the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Securities and Exchange Commission to do more as regulators to ensure adequate risk management.

They said this at the 2010 Roundtable on Corporate Governance, in Lagos on Wednesday.

The speakers were the Chairman, DN Tyre and Rubber Plc, Mr. Dayo Lawuyi; Chairman, Interswitch, Mr. Dotun Sulaiman; Founder, Chair Centre Limited, Mrs Ibukun Awosika; and a board member, MTN Group, South Africa, Ms. Koosum Kalyan.

According to the panelists, there is the need for the regulators to wake up to their responsibilities, adding that operators will only do the necessary things if those saddled with regulatory responsibilities perform their task.

They noted that the crisis in the financial sector was mainly due to lack of proper risk management and corporate governance practices on the part of players and regulatory laxity on the part of the regulators.

For instance, the Interswitch boss pointed out that the problem with corporate governance in many organisations was lack of understanding.

He said, ”There is a conflict between what an individual wants as a leader and what the organisation wants. People tend to see themselves as bigger than the organisations they manage on behalf of shareholders, so they don‘t allow the system put in place to work effectively, most especially when it affects them.

“We saw that in a lot banks when the audit results were released by the CBN. Banks‘ chief executive officers used their positions to make decisions in their own interests.”

Lawuyi, who was also a director of the SCGN, prior to the CBN intervention in banks, shared Sulaiman’s views. He said a lot of people threw risk management and corporate governance to the wind.

He added, ”We spend a lot of time instituting controls but we do less in the area of enforcement. Also, self leadership is important because if you can‘t lead yourself, you are not worthy of leading people.”

Awosika, on his part, noted that there should be a process agreed upon by the regulators and organisations on the appointment of board representatives.

“Apart from going through interviews in the organisations where you intend to serve as a board representative, regulators should also conduct interviews separate from the ones conducted by the organisations,” she said.

Source: Punch