Principle 1. Leading our organisation.
1. Agreeing our vision, purpose and values and making sure that they remain relevant;
2. Developing, resourcing, monitoring and evaluating a plan to make sure that our organisation achieves its stated
purpose.
3. Managing, supporting and holding to account staff, volunteers and all who act on behalf of the organisation.
Principle 2. Exercising control over our organisation.
1. Identifying and complying with all relevant legal and regulatory requirements;
2. Making sure that there are appropriate internal financial and management controls;
3. Identifying major risks for our organisation and deciding ways of managing the risks.
Principle 3. Being transparent and accountable.
1. Identifying those who have a legitimate interest in the work of our organisation (stakeholders) and making sure
that there is regular and effective communication with them about our organisation;
2. Responding to stakeholders’ questions or views about the work of our organisation and how we run it;
3. Encouraging and enabling the engagement of those who benefit from our organisation in the planning and
decision-making of the organisation.
Principle 4.Working effectively.
1. Making sure that our governing body, individual board members, committees, staff and volunteers understand
their: role, legal duties, and delegated responsibility for decision-making.
2. Making sure that as a board we exercise our collective responsibility through board meetings that are efficient and
effective.
3. Making sure that there is suitable board recruitment, development and retirement processes in place.
Principle 5.Behaving with integrity.
1. Being honest, fair and independent;
2. Understanding, declaring and managing conflicts of interest and conflicts of loyalties;
3. Protecting and promoting our organisation’s reputation.
Good governance has 8 major characteristics. It is participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent,
responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive, and follows the rule of law. Good governance is
responsive to the present and future needs of the organization, exercises prudence in policy-setting and
decision-making, and that the best interests of all stakeholders are taken into account.
1. Rule of Law
Good governance requires fair legal frameworks that are enforced by an impartial regulatory body, for the full
protection of stakeholders.
2. Transparency
Transparency means that information should be provided in easily understandable forms and media; that it
should be freely available and directly accessible to those who will be affected by governance policies and
practices, as well as the outcomes resulting therefrom; and that any decisions taken and their enforcement are
in compliance with established rules and regulations.
3. Responsiveness
Good governance requires that organizations and their processes are designed to serve the best interests of
stakeholders within a reasonable timeframe.
4. Consensus Oriented
Good governance requires consultation to understand the different interests of stakeholders in order to reach
a broad consensus of what is in the best interest of the entire stakeholder group and how this can be achieved
in a sustainable and prudent manner.
5. Equity and Inclusiveness
The organization that provides the opportunity for its stakeholders to maintain, enhance, or generally improve
their well-being provides the most compelling message regarding its reason for existence and value to
society.
6. Effectiveness and Efficiency
Good governance means that the processes implemented by the organization to produce favorable results
meet the needs of its stakeholders, while making the best use of resources – human, technological, financial,
natural and environmental – at its disposal.
7. Accountability
Accountability is a key tenet of good governance. Who is accountable for what should be documented in policy
statements. In general, an organization is accountable to those who will be affected by its decisions or actions
as well as the applicable rules of law.
8. Participation
Participation by both men and women, either directly or through legitimate representatives, is a key
cornerstone of good governance. Participation needs to be informed and organized, including freedom of
expression and assiduous concern for the best interests of the organization and society in general.
The pillars of successful corporate governance are: accountability, fairness,
transparency, assurance, leadership and stakeholder management. All six are critical
in successfully running a entity and forming solid professional relationships among
its stakeholders which include board directors, managers, employees, customers,
regulators and most importantly, shareholders.
Accountability: Accountability embraces ownership of strategy and task
required to attain organisational goals. This also means owing reward
and risk in clear context of predetermined value proposition.. When the
idea of accountability is approached with this positive outlook, people
will be more open to it as a means to improve their performance. This
applies from the staff all the way up to top leadership embracing Risk
management within defined formal appetite for risk. This also include
fostering culture of compliance to create real and perceived believe that
the entity is operation within internal and external boundaries
Fairness: Fairness means “treating all stakeholders s including
minorities, reasonably, equitably and provide effective redress for
violations. Establishing effective communication mechanism is important
in ensure just and timely protection of resource sand people asset as well
correcting of wrongs
Transparency: Transparency “means having nothing to hide” that allows
its processes and transactions observable to outsiders. It also makes
necessary disclosures, informs everyone affected about its decisions.
Transparency is a critical component of corporate governance because it
ensures that all of entity’s actions can be checked at any given time by an
outside observer. This makes its processes and transactions verifiable, so
if a question does come up about a step, the company can provide a clear
answer
Independent Assurance: In progressing transparency it is important for
non-direct actors to obtain confidence that that executive actors are
leading the entity towards pre-defined intent and not using it for self and
obtain expert advisory on how applied approached can be improved.
Assurance services provide independent and professional opinions that
reduce the information risk (risk that comes from incorrect
information). Independent assurance is the verification by a third party
(not directly responsible for QA and acceptance of the
product/deliverable and/or the reliability of test results obtained from
quality control and acceptance testing. This independent assurance
insures that (1) the representation or acceptance test results are accurate
and provide a fair and equitable basis for construction acceptance and (2)
quality control testing is accurate and thus will properly indicate process
quality.
Leadership; Direction “defining and offering leadership on organisation’s
agenda within the values and principles that frame the way business
should be done. Those charged with governance are responsible for these
key strategic issues and for proving leadership in establishing the right
culture to drive the performance of the business. Without clear direction,
policy and procedures, the organisation will flounder and likely never to
realise its long term goals and potential. This should include leadership
and core expertise renewal to both retains knowledge/experience, ensure
appropriate representation and continuity.
Stakeholder engagement: Those charged with governance should
identify the key stakeholders and how they interact with the business and
how they are engaged with to ensure the best outcome for the
organisation. Stakeholder engagement included in the annual agenda and
strategic plan.
