Muthuvel says ministry working to include women on SOE boards

STATE Enterprises Minister Sasindran Muthuvel says his ministry is working on including one or two women as directors on the boards of state-owned entities.
“We are trying to bring in qualification matrix like someone with an accounting or legal background, so that on each board, we know what qualification to look for so accordingly we can select our women directors,” he told a recent business breakfast event in Port Moresby.
“The Marape-Steven government is very keen on bringing you (women) on board because we know the success rate and the value of bringing women on board.
“To give that balance and also to bring success and, thereby, improve productivity.”
Muthuvel also noted that although it was formally advertised for expression of interests from all walks of life, only six women applied for the role of directors for State-owned enterprises.
He also noted that the boards’ performance would be reviewed by independent entities.
“We will also be reviewing the performance of the board’s annual impact,” he said.
“We will be expecting a minimum of 20 hours each for directors going through some skills training in terms of continuing to upgrade themselves.
“We will be reviewing their performance by independent review by some competent entities like KPMG, PwC and other organisations. We will also include self-assessment and a peer review of their own performance including feedbacks from the management.
“For SOEs, our target is end of this year to implement at least 50 per cent of this reform to at least show to our development partners that we are performing.
“These reforms also guarantee the performance of all our companies and also funding support.”
from various development partners like World Bank or Asian Development Bank (ADB),” Muthuvel said.