Introduction
For decades, the captains of Guyana industry – almost all men – have resisted the introduction of a binding code of corporate governance. It has not been for want of effort. There have been numerous efforts at the establishment of a code of corporate governance including one by the Securities Council and another by the Private Sector Commission. Neither of these came to fruition and there is now a total void with companies limited to more narrow codes issued for a particular sector, or to practices likely to get past a general body of unenlightened shareholders.
In a column I did several years ago, I wrote that the international quest for a modern corporate governance code began in the UK in 1991. Then Prime Minister John Major appointed a committee headed by Sir Adrian Cadbury following a number of high-profile corporate failures which were attributed to poor governance, poor accounting and inadequate disclosures. The most significant corporate failures were the Maxwell Communications Corporation scandal in 1991 which surfaced after chairman Robert Maxwell died in the most unusual circumstances, revealing that he had fraudulently misappropriated hundreds of millions of British pounds belonging to the group’s pension schemes. Then there was the failure of the Bank of Credit and Commerce Inter-national which collapsed after an investigation revealed that it had been engaged in fraud and money laundering.