Cape Town - Advocate Selby Baqwa, currently the country's public protector, would join banking group Nedcor in October in the newly created position of head of corporate governance.
Baqwa, appointed public protector in 1995, successfully developed the parliamentary office into a recognised national organisation with about 200 employees. He is also chancellor of Technikon North West and vice-president of the International Ombudsman Institute.
Paul Setsetse, the spokesperson for the department of justice, said a new public protector had not yet been appointed, although advertisements had been placed for interested individuals.
Chris Liebenberg, the chairman of Nedcor, said the creation of the new position reflected the growing demands on companies to conform to the highest corporate governance standards. The King 2 report, published earlier this year, attached great importance to the concept of the "triple bottom line" whereby companies were expected to report not only on their financial performance, but also on the corporate governance impact of delivering this performance.
Baqwa would have the responsibility of ensuring Nedcor's standards of governance and that these would reflect on the bank's key audiences - customers, staff, investors, suppliers, regulators and the general public.
Baqwa's appointment follows Nedcor being ranked second in the South African section of a Euromoney magazine survey of corporate governance in emerging markets. The July edition carried a survey of 184 companies spread across emerging markets. Both Nedcor and BoE (ranked third in the same survey) scored higher than their banking peer group.
The survey looked at five categories: ownership transparency, financial transparency, board structure and process, stakeholder relations and managerial interests.
Nedcor scored 100 percent for board structure and process, and 96 percent for financial transparency.