KPMG Corporate Governance survey released

KPMG Ford, Rhodes, Thornton and Co. released the findings of a recently conducted Corporate Governance Survey in Sri Lanka, which was directed towards providing the member firm's clients, stakeholders and the general community with interesting insights into current practices and developments of Corporate Governance across various industries in the country and involved feedback from a large number of corporates across a range of sectors.

The recent corporate collapses at global level, increased regulatory requirements and stronger stakeholder interest in companies has created a positive and proactive interest in Corporate Governance practices across the globe. The survey examined the local context where many companies are seen to be improving transparency, stakeholder accountability and even extending towards community development and justification of social costs.

The main areas of coverage in the survey includedGeneral importance of corporate governance, Corporate governance structure, Corporate governance practices, Corporate governance development, Critical success factors for improved corporate governance, Regulatory impact on corporate governance, General impact of corporate governance, Alternate approaches to promote corporate governance and other issues

The key findings included mixed views on the independence of directors director succession becoming a challenge for many companies, board involvement in strategy and goal setting is at a high level, but could be higher, performance measurement of the board and directors may require further enhancement and the audit committee with greater power to investigate financial reporting is considered as an important principle to ensure good corporate governance.

The improvement of corporate citizenship is considered to create quantifiable and non-quantifiable benefits for the corporate institution as well as the various communities with which they interact and thus facilitate business improvement and sustainability.