New corporate governance code in Oman meets global standards

Muscat: Corporate governance is more than mere compliance and when regulators worldwide legislated the leading governance practices, it has been done to protect all stakeholders including investors from the organisational failures caused by corporate governance failure.
This was the conclusion at the seminar organised by The Institute of Internal Auditors Oman (IIA Oman) under sponsorship of the College of Baking and Financial Studies at its auditorium.
“Oman’s capital market regulator has adopted the leading corporate governance practices which meets international standards. This would surely help all the stakeholders with improved level of corporate governance practices,” said Sharon Ditchburn, an eminent consultant and trainer on Corporate Governance, while speaking at the seminar as the technical speaker.
Badar Al Hashmi, president of IIA Oman, welcomed attendees and the speaker. He emphasised on the importance of creating awareness on the corporate governance by mutual knowledge sharing at such events. Ali Rehman, the chairman of Education and Research Committee of the chapter, coordinated the event.
Mubeen Khan,vice president of IIA Oman, in his address, referred to three lines of defence model and emphasised that “management controls are the first and second lines of defence against frauds and misappropriation whereas Internal Auditors and Audit Committee are at third line of defense and external auditors being at the next.
If the regulator, who stands outside all lines of defense, discovers fraud and is forced to take corrective action, this indicates that the other lines of defence were either absent or ineffective.
“Such situation can be avoided by implementing a robust corporate governance framework. Therefore implementing the new code of corporate governance is more to protect the investors , board members, management and other stakeholders and must not be taken as a mere regulatory compliance ,” he added.