MUSCAT -- KPMG, a leading international firm providing audit, tax and advisory services, after the recent successful breakfast seminar on 'CFO of the Future', organised a seminar on Corporate Governance at the Grand Hyatt yesterday. This is the second in a series of breakfast seminars that KPMG is holding over the coming weeks. This seminar brought together people charged with governance to discuss the key governance challenges faced by organisations including CMA disclosure requirements.
Michael Armstrong, partner in charge of KPMG in Oman, highlighted that the seminar had received an enthusiastic response, with representatives attending from a wide variety of industry groups and corporate houses. The seminar was led by Karl Hendricks, partner responsible for KPMG's advisory services practice for the Lower Gulf (the UAE and Oman), with key participation by Joanna Declercq Zelechowska, partner in the Financial Risk Management (FRM) advisory practice of KPMG, Harikrishnan Janakiraman, Manager for Internal Audit Services and Michael Armstrong.
Michael mentioned that some of the most spectacular corporate collapses and losses in recent memory have highlighted the role that corporate governance practices need to play in maintaining viable entities and safeguarding investors' interests. Over the past few years, many leading companies have focused their efforts towards embracing leading governance practices to ensure that the company's governance structure is designed to achieve the goals and objectives of the business and meet shareholder expectation.
The presentation initially focused on the key governance challenges and the key elements that need to be embedded within the governance framework of the company: namely, board committees, policies and procedures, enterprise risk management, internal audit, external audit and compliance with laws and regulations. Karl explained the regional trends in the development of the governance framework and the extent to which companies publish shareholders' structure and whether they clearly explain the company's charter.
It was highlighted that a recent survey had shown Oman's compliance in respect of publishing shareholders' structure was 100 followed by Jordan and Egypt at about 90 per cent and 70 per cent respectively. Karl mentioned how the key committees should be an integral part of an organisation's structure to assist the board of directors in discharging their duties effectively.
He explained the role of the different committees like the nomination and remuneration committee to oversight director's remuneration and competencies; investment committee to oversight all investment decisions; audit and risk committee to provide oversight on the Internal control environment and risks facing companies and various other management committees for assets and financial risks.
Karl also provided data relating to the region on how effective the board committees are in providing oversight/disclosure in areas like management accounting judgement and estimates; executive board members' remuneration; legal and regulatory compliance; fraud; risk management and information technology. Joanna Declercq Zelechowska explained how the various parts of an organisation come together to form efficient and effective risk management and how risk management is established at organisations.
The discussions also focused on the disclosure requirements and the key challenges faced by organisations in Oman. Michael highlighted some of the major challenges faced by the MSM listed companies in complying with the CMA regulations. Michael mentioned that KPMG is running similar breakfast seminars in the coming weeks for business process re-engineering, business continuity planning and information technology.
By Staff Reporter
© Oman Daily Observer 2009
