EDITORIAL - Transparency in board appointments

As happens when a new administration takes office, by now the directors and commissioners of myriad government companies and statutory authorities - except those with constitutional or special insulation - will have resigned or will do so shortly. That is the norm in democracies such as our own.

Such resignations are predicated on an assumption that a new government should be given a relatively free hand to appoint the directors of entities that, even if commercial in character, may be critical to the interpretation, and delivery, of its policies. And it is the decent thing to do.

However, as the new ministers go about appointing the new boards, over which most will have substantial autonomy, this newspaper insists that they must proceed with care. For while we appreciate that ministers will seek a level of comfort with the directors they appoint, we, as the society general, will not accept a 1970s-style Pickersgillian test of ideological purity or political loyalty. Nor must board appointments be seen as opportunities for rewarding people, even if only with symbols of status, for political support.

In that regard, we urge ministers to see the boards that give oversight to state-owned companies and institutions as part of a wider governance process and, therefore, subject to the same level of transparency and accountability that people believe they are owed by the central government.

Test for competence

The important test for appointments, therefore, is whether the persons who are being put on boards have the ability to do the jobs. This demands, in the first place, that there is absolute clarity about the role of the organisations to which they are appointed and the parameters within which they are expected to operate.

Ministers naming boards, therefore, should declare to the public the job of the institution, the policies that govern it, the expected deliverables over the tenure of the board, and the reason for the appointment of each of their nominees.

We should know, too, if and how board members are compensated; what reports they are mandated to submit; how they have performed in the past; and the process by which directors will be held accountable.

Indeed, it is common knowledge that there are many government companies and institutions whose annual audited accounts and directors' reports are years behind, even as taxpayers are forced to embrace the losses and debt run up by these recalcitrant directors and the executives they oversee.