OUR GOVERNANCE
Driving Value Creation
Governance of Functional Areas
Risk Governance
The Board governs risk in a way that supports SAICA in setting and achieving its strategic objectives.
Committed to following the recommendations of King IV™, the Board has integrated risk management into all of SAICA’s activities and decision-making processes. This means that everyone in the organisation, at every level, understands and considers risks as part of their work.
SAICA has defined clear approaches to managing various types of risks, including financial risks, compliance risks, sustainability risks, health and safety risks, and risks related to business continuity and disaster recovery.
ExCo is responsible for working with the oversight of ARC to create, implement, and monitor the systems and processes that ensure effective risk management. For more details, please refer to the risk and opportunity management report.
Information and Technology Governance
The Board governs technology and information in a way that supports SAICA setting and achieving its strategic objectives.
It is the Board’s job to ensure that SAICA’s IT systems are well-governed and align with the organisation’s objectives. The Digital Transformation Governance Committee (DTGC) is responsible for oversight of SAICA’s technology and information projects. The committee regularly reports its findings and recommendations to the Board, ensuring that technology effectively supports SAICA’s mission. See details of SAICA’s digitalisation efforts and the DTGC report.
Compliance Governance
The Board governs compliance with applicable laws and adopted non-binding rules, codes and standards in a way that supports SAICA being ethical and a good corporate citizen.
The Board oversees compliance with laws, regulations, and non-binding rules, codes and standards to ensure SAICA acts ethically and is a responsible corporate citizen. The Board establishes the standards that guarantee all areas of the business follow the relevant laws, regulations, codes, and policies. Serious violations are reported directly to the Board or through its committees. The ARC is responsible for monitoring compliance and ensuring that SAICA meets its obligations.
Remuneration Governance
The Board ensures that SAICA remunerates fairly, responsibly and transparently so as to promote the achievement of strategic objectives and positive outcomes in the short, medium and long term.
Assurance
The Board ensures that assurance services and functions enable an effective control environment and that these support the integrity of information for internal decision-making and of SAICA’s external reports.
The Board ensures that assurance services and functions create a strong control environment. This is essential for maintaining the integrity of information used in internal decision-making and for SAICA’s external reports. The Board understands that it cannot function effectively without trusting the information presented to it.
To support this, the Board has handed over the oversight of direct assurance services to the ARC. A combined assurance model is in place to address significant risks and important matters, using both internal and external assurance providers. The committee is confident in the effectiveness of these models concerning financial and non-financial risks and controls.
The oversight of the internal audit function has been delegated to the ARC. The internal audit function operates under a charter that is reviewed each year. The internal audit manager has a direct reporting line to the Chairperson of the ARC, in addition to his/her reporting responsibilities to the finance function.
For more information, refer to the risk and opportunity management section and the ARC report.
Stakeholders
In the execution of its governance role and responsibilities, the Board adopts a stakeholder-inclusive approach that balances the needs, interests and expectations of material stakeholders in the best interest of SAICA over time.
The Board recognises the importance of considering the legitimate interests of all stakeholders while making decisions that are in the best interest of SAICA. Meaningful involvement of stakeholders in decision-making is vital for creating value for SAICA. To facilitate this, we engage with our stakeholders using a stakeholder-inclusive approach (that is, in the execution of its governance role and responsibilities the Board should adopt a stakeholder-inclusive approach that balances the needs and expectations of material stakeholders in the best interests of the organisation over time).
SAICA follows the corporate governance principles and many recommended practices from King IV™. In line with this, the Board approved a policy that outlines how we manage our relationships with stakeholders.
This policy aims to strengthen our relationships with stakeholders, identify opportunities and threats related to their concerns, support sustainable strategic decisions, and encourage a stakeholder-inclusive approach in implementing SAICA’s strategy.
Through our stakeholder engagement efforts, SAICA is dedicated to understanding and responding to the interests and expectations of our stakeholders. We present our stakeholder engagement report quarterly to SETCO. For more details, see the stakeholder engagement section and the SETCO report.
