By AYISY YUSOF
KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Institute of Corporate Governance (MICG) said the disclosure practices and levels of transparency among corporates are still fall short of expected standards.
MICG president Datuk Yusli Mohamed Yusoff said corporate governance standards play a pivotal role in promoting greater trust and accountability in the capital market.
"These standards raise the expectations of public listed companies with regard to transparent and comprehensive public reporting. Indeed, for trust and accountability to exist, there must be transparency," he said at a press conference after launching the inaugural assessment on "Transparency in Corporate Reporting- Assessing Malaysia's Top 100 Public Listed Companies" in Kuala Lumpur, today.
The scope of the report covers the assessment of Bursa Malaysia's top 100 public listed companies by market capitalisation as of December 30, 2016.
Yusli added the report measures the availability of property publicly accessible information on a company based on three criteria including its anti-corruption programme, organisational transparency and sustainability.
"Public sources for this information include corporate websites, annual reports and media reporting among others," he said adding the objective of the report is to raise the bar of corporate governance in Malaysia.
He said MICG undertook the study with the support of the Minister in the Prime Minister's Department responsible for governance, integrity and human rights, to access on a larger scale the disclosure practices of large Malaysian companies.
The study revealed that 15 companies scored more than 50 per cent on all three dimensions, 11 companies scored full points in at least one of the three dimensions and 64 companies scored less than 50 per cent overall.
The report also stated on an overall basis, government linked companies scores better relative to multinational corporations and family-run public listed companies with average score of 5.8,5.5 and 4.1, respectively.
MICG said transparency is important to demonstrate accountability to stakeholders and facilitates monitoring in keeping the company honest to promote ethical behaviour, perform better in the future.Meanwhile, Federal Minister responsible for governance, integrity and human rights in the Prime Minister's Department, Senator Datuk Paul Low Seng Kuan said good governance, institutions and processes are important for the country's economic resilient.
"Malaysia needs to be progressive with strong support in areas of political stability, economic growth and social engagement
"The national drive to improve governance and reduce corruption must also be tackled at both the public and private sectors," he said.
Low concurred that good corporate governance and sustainable development has become a key concern for investors as value can be destroyed by non-compliance to acceptable standards.
"We have seen countries collapsing purely not only because of political crisis but also for bad governance."Good governance is the foundation on the country's growth inline with the continuous transformation plans," he said.
In Malaysia, corporate governance standards were introduced in 2000 and have since been refreshed three times with the recently revised Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance announced in April this year.