Malta's Finance Minister Promotes New Corporate Governance Philosophy

by Amanda Banks, Tax-news.com, London

04 June 2001

Minister of Finance, John Dalli, spoke last week on the Maltese government's new policy on good corporate governance. During a speech he gave to a workshop co-organised by the Institute of Directors and the MFSC on 'Good Corporate Governance,' Mr Dalli explained that the government's 'new administrative philosophy' was based on the criteria of honesty, transparency, fairness, responsibility, check and balance, and social involvement.

He stated: 'The degree of success achieved by following the above criteria will propagate corporate integrity and help gain credibility in all aspects of society. Ownership based governance is likely to transform corporations into more democratic institutions and institutional investors can unleash the wealth-generating capacity of "human capital" which is based in the skills and knowledge of corporate employees.'

The Minister argued that companies have realised that, with the 'full mental participation of their employees,' they could manufacture their products more efficiently and effectively. By the same token investors are now learning that shareholder participation also adds value. 'As a result,' he said, 'a corporation with good corporate governance will become even more highly esteemed and will reach out effectively to more end-consumers than ever. Corporate image is more likely to be attained through the whole of the corporate process, both internally and externally, rather than merely through cosmetically hyped-up promotion via media publicity and public relations deployment.'

Mr Dalli concluded his speech with praise for the Institute of Directors and the MFSC; he thanked them for their support of the creation of a new company compliance unit to monitor good governance and announced: 'I hope that once this Unit is firmly established we should be able to produce a code of conduct on corporate governance.'

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