Corporate Governance of SOEs and Compliance With the SOE Governance Act in Namibia: A Survey

Abstract

This paper assessed the practices and standards of Corporate Governance for SOEs in Namibia. The results revealed that the state of the SOEs Corporate Governance system in Namibia is weak. SOEs are nearly uncontrolled and unmonitored regarding their Corporate Governance. Although the Government spends roughly half the size of its annual development budget on funding SOEs, it is not controlling the performance of its investments. The Namibian system of Corporate Governance is a decentralised model and relies almost solely on the Line Ministries to ensure compliance. However, the majority of Line Ministries are not executing their assigned ownership power. Most Line Ministries do not establish extra units or divisions for SOE monitoring, and instead, delegate the task of monitoring performance to staff across different divisions.