The Nation Newspaper

Tag: risk

  • ‘Whistle blowing vital to risk control’

    ‘Whistle blowing vital to risk control’

    The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) have called for whistle blowing as a means of promoting sound risk management and corporate governance in organisations.

    Speaking during the IOD Centre for Corporate Governance workshop in Lagos, NSE Chief Executive officer, Mr Oscar Enyema, said by disclosing sensitive information anonymously, workers can help promote sound risk management practices.

    Onyema, who was represented by NSE Director, Bola Adeeko, said some staff of the NSE had signed a code of conduct agreement that act as a check and balance on their activities. This, he said, is to ensure that personal interest of each employee is not in conflict with that of the organisation.

    Also, CAC Registrar-General, Mr Bello Mahmud, represented by the Assistant Director, Compliance, Adaguusu Moses, said there was need for entrepreneurs to consider the characters and reputations of persons they want to partner with in business, especially if such persons are to become directors.

    One of the participants, Olayimikah Soetan, said organisations are confronted by events that affect the execution of their strategies and achievement of their goals, which he said, can have negative impact (risks), a positive impact (opportunities), or an both risk and opportunities.

    “The goal of risk management is to create, protect, and enhance shareholder value by managing the uncertainties that could either negatively or positively influence achievement of the organisation’s objectives,” he said.

    He said although organisations’ face various types of risk, much of the focus of risk management have traditionally been on fluctuations in interest rates, exchange rates and stock indices as well as management of hazard risks.

    He said: “Another mistake which many organisations make, is dealing with risk in a piecemeal fashion. Typically, within the same company, different functions, such as finance, treasury, human resources and legal cover risks independently. Now, the traditional approach to risk management is giving way to an integrated approach.”

    He explained that integrated risk management is all about the identification and assessment of the risks of the company as a whole and formulation and implementation of a companywide strategy to manage them.

     

  • Girls who risk their lives for education

    LONDON — Almost unnoticed, one of the great civil rights struggles of our times is being fought out in our midst. Across the Indian subcontinent, in Afghanistan and in Africa, supporters of universal girls’ education are being threatened, assaulted, bombed and murdered.

    Within the past two weeks alone, a 41-year-old teacher was gunned down 200 meters from her all-girls school near the Pakistan-Afghan border; two classrooms in an all-girls school in the north of Pakistan were blown up; and at an awards ceremony in the heart of Karachi, a principal was shot to death and another teacher and four pupils were wounded after grenades were hurled into a school that specialized in enrolling girls.

    It was perhaps no coincidence that the Karachi teachers had been visited last year by Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old who was shot in October simply because she wanted girls to go to school and is now a global symbol for the right of girls to education.

    In the last two years hundreds of schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan have been firebombed and closed down by religious fundamentalists determined to stop the march of girls’ education.

    But just as in 1960s America, when unspoken resentments against discrimination slowly transformed into a wave of public defiance, Pakistan’s silent majority is refusing to stay silent any longer. More and more are saying that neither bombs nor bullets nor arson will now stop them from sending girls to school.

    And, for the first time, it is not adults but girls themselves who are pushing this civil rights movement forward. A few months ago, when Morocco’s education minister visited a Marrakech school, he told a 12-year-old named Raouia Ayache she would be better off leaving school and becoming a child bride: “You! Your time would be better spent looking for a man!”

    But Raouia stood up to him and stayed in school, her family protesting to the government about how the education minister had betrayed his obligation to promote education.

    Across the Indian subcontinent, teenage girls are joining together, village by village, to create “child-marriage-free zones.”

    In Bangladesh, the so-called “wedding busters” have now created 19 such zones, pledging that they will support one another to stay in school and resist being married against their will.

    Add the child-marriage-free zones, the Malala demonstrations, the petitions against child labor, the growing movement exposing child trafficking, and there are a million young Malalas. All are trying to uphold and affirm their human dignity and battling for their rights, doing so far from the glare of publicity, fighting a daily unrecorded battle for human decency and fair treatment.

    Of course many of the rights that girls are fighting for are those that have been taken for granted, at least for a century, in most countries. We have moved from an old world where, if you were a girl, your rights were what others decreed, your status what others ascribed to you, and if your mother was poor, so too would you always be.

    But today’s movement is not just for emancipation — a 20th-century demand for freedom from injustices — but for empowerment, a 21st-century demand for freedom to make the most of your talents. It is a liberation movement more akin to the Arab Spring.

    And it is, potentially, a game changer. The movement challenges world leaders to recognize that, despite the Millenium Development Goal promise to ensure universal education for girls by the end of 2015, progress has stalled. As Martin Luther King said in his time about the “promissory note” on black rights, the check has been returned marked “insufficient funds.”

    Next week, The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and the president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, will meet with countries that are off-track to discuss the legislation, incentives, reforms — and money — needed to speed up the enrollment of girls in schools.

    I will share with them the testimony of the two friends of Malala Yousafzai, Kainat Riaz and Shazia Ramzan, who were also shot on the Swat Valley school bus that fateful day last October. Both want to be doctors. Both are still in Pakistan, protected in their homes by security guards, escorted to school by police. I have talked twice to the girls, and, as they repeated to a foreign TV crew only a few weeks ago, they are being persecuted but will never again be cowed.

    Four years ago, Kainat says, girls were hiding their books under their burqas. Now, she says, the Taliban “can’t stop us from going to school. I want to study. I am not afraid.” Now, Shazia says, “We are strong.”

    • Gordon Brown is the United Nations secretary general’s special envoy for global education. He was Britain’s prime minister from 2007 to 2010.

  • I’m a risk taker —Rukky Sanda

    I’m a risk taker —Rukky Sanda

    Light-skinned actress, Rukky Sanda, is certainly a thespian that knows her onions, judging by the way she interprets her roles. The fun-loving actress opened up on a range of issues in this interview with AHMED BOULOR. 

    WHAT really influenced you to go into acting?

    Watching stars on TV basically influenced my decision to become an actress. It sounds weird, but watching TV while I was growing up, I just knew I wanted to be in it. The rest, as they say, is history, as I am enjoying every moment of being an actress at the moment.

    Have you achieved your vision as an actress yet?

    Yes, I am definitely achieving my vision gradually. I haven’t achieved it yet, but I definitely will, because God told me so. I’m headed in the right direction in my career and I am in charge of my future.

    As one who has been on the scene for quite a while, what plans do you have for Nollywood which has brought you relative fame and fortune?

    I am basically carving my own niche, and telling my own stories. Stories I can relate with. I am also giving my audience something different; telling it exactly how I want it to be told. As different individuals from different places, we all have different stories to tell and different things going on around us. We all also have different views and that means we all offer something different. I would like to use this opportunity to commend the efforts of my fellow colleagues like Uche Jombo, Emem Isong, Tonto Dikeh, Ini Edo and others who have distinguished themselves while also contributing their quotas to the development of Nollywood.

    Are you mentoring any upcoming actress at the moment?

    Yes, I have quite a few new talents that I mentor while also giving them the opportunity to show their talents. I’m a risk taker, I can basically convince you to be an actor if you suit a character I want or would like to create. But not just actresses, I have more of actors. I made it a priority to always use one or two new faces in every production I do.

    What has kept you going thus far as an actress?

    My career has been on the move all this while – thanks to God. There really has been no secret but for Him guiding my path and directing my steps and showing me what to do. It also has to do with being patient, disciplined, knowing exactly what you want and working towards achieving it and mostly being optimistic. You also have to believe in what you do and love it. I have overtime developed a passion for moviemaking and there’s so much I want to learn.

    Do you have any words of advice for upstarts?

    My advice will be; it may sound trite, but you have to be confident and not arrogant. You have to be willing to work hard, pray hard and make the best of every opportunity and give your best performance if you’re lucky to get an audition. And never take anyone for granted because you never know who can help you. Most importantly, never let anyone take advantage of you. Don’t be desperate and don’t make wrong decisions you’ll have to live with for the rest of your life. If God has said that’s your ordained career, it will happen, you just need to pray, be wise and patient.

    Would you say being beautiful is a blessing or a curse?

    I’m blessed to be beautiful. God surely took his time in creating me, so it’s definitely a blessing and a super blessing at that.

    Has life taught you any lesson?

    Life has taught me to always stay true to myself, put God first and follow my instincts. Life has also taught me to be patient while also teaching me to put myself and family as my main priority.

    Why did you give N500, 000 to Funmi Lawal? Is it that you have too much money?

    It sounds like a cliché when you put it like that. I don’t know how a good deed will be perceived as an issue of having too much money or showing off. I’m comfortable, I thank God, and I don’t think there’s such a thing as having too much money. I would love to be extremely rich in every way but even the richest people want more money. It’s nothing like that, we never even intended for it to be public, I don’t know how it got out. She needed the money more than we did because she’s battling cancer and I’m glad we were able to help. So that being said, keep her in your prayers and let’s hope she recovers fully and gets back to normal health.

    Did you and Tonto take that decision together?

    Tonto actually initiated it; so most of the credit should go to her. I knew absolutely nothing about the story or the lady. Tonto had heard about it and she was really worried and concerned. She has such an amazing heart; that crazy girl. She actually called me at 6am on Tuesday because it bothered her and she could not sleep. But I didn’t really get what she was saying because I was sleeping, I told her I’d call when I woke up. When I finally did at 2pm, we spoke and she expressed her sympathy and said she wanted us to do something. So we decided to make the donation and contributed equally.

    How close are you and Tonto?

    Yes, she’s one of my best friends, she’s fun, naughty and amazing, and she’s my baby.

    How have you been able to manage the fame?

    It has not been an easy thing but then, I apply the principle of being humble in all things that I do and whatever I achieve in life.

    What would make you reject a movie script?

    If the storyline of the script is not good or attractive enough, I will reject it. If the director is someone I feel I cannot work with, I will also reject it.