No NamCode tinkering Although the Namibia Stock Exchange has embarked on a process to determine if a market update to the NamCode governance code is required, its chief executive officer, Tiaan Bazuin, has indicated that no changes are planned as yet. This follows the recent adoption of King IV in neighbouring South Africa in the latter part of 2016.
Speaking to Namibian Sun recently, he said that he did not believe a change to the code was necessary at the moment.
Said Bazuin: “We have embarked on a process to get input from the market to determine if an update is required and if so what we can do by way of directive within the current code. Obviously the South African market used King 3 for almost ten years, so an update made sense. In our case NamCode is still settling so we do not believe rewriting it at this time makes sense.”
Motivating the need for the adoption of NamCode locally, the Institute of Directors said in the past: “NamCode became necessary because of the Companies Act No 28 of 2004 and changes in governance internationally, including the release of the King Code on Governance for South Africa, 2009 (King III) and the introduction of the new South African Companies Act which differs significantly from the former 1973 companies acts which applied to both countries and the 2004 Companies Act.”
“The Namibian Stock Exchange (NSX) in particular and Namibia business in general could not adopt the King III Code, as it has done with King II previously.
Therefore a need arose to create a code, based on the principles contained in King III and other international best practices, but adapted to suit the Namibian legislative landscape,” it said of NamCode at the time of its introduction.
OGONE TLHAGE