Kenya Commercial Bank is the best governed company in the country, followed by Safaricom and Standard Chartered, the Cytonn Corporate Governance Index shows.
The report shows KCB Group scored 95.8 per cent while both Safaricom and Standard Chartered scored 83.3 per cent. They were the only
firms that scored higher than 80 per cent, out of the 50 listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange.
KenGen ranked after the top three performers with a score of 79.2 per cent while Jubilee Holdings, East African Breweries, Barclays and British American Tobacco tied at 77.1 per cent.
Diamond Trust Bank scored 75 per cent while I&M Bank, Umeme and Equity Grouped scored 72.9 per cent.
The report shows the most poorly governed company was Kenya Orchards with a score of 10.4 per cent, followed by Limuru Tea and Flame Tree Group, which scored 18.8 and 33.3 per cent, respectively.
Other poor performers were Crown Paints, Scan Group, Carbacid Investments and Williamson Tea; they had a score of below 50 per cent.
Cytonn said the main areas of analysis were board composition, audit functions, the tenure of the chief executive officer, evaluation, remuneration and transparency.
“A higher score indicates better corporate governance,” chief investment officer Elizabeth Nkukuu said during the launch of the report on Monday morning.
Several firms, both listed and non-listed, have been on the spot over governance issues.
as its CEO over gross misconduct and negligence. The retailer featured in the top ten list of poorly governed companies with a score of 37.5 per cent.
But National Bank, which has been on the spot for failing to adhere to timeliness in the release of company results, scored 68.8 per cent, placing it in the same league as Kenya Power and the NSE which garnered the same score.
Poor corporate governance is also to blame for the collapse of Dubai Bank, Imperial Bank and Chase Bank.