Corporate governance structures and practices at the Kenya Revenue Authority

Abstract

Corporate governance refers to the manner in which the power of a corporation is exercised in the stewardship of the corporation's total portfolio and resources with an objective of obtaining increasing stakeholders' value and satisfaction within the context of individual organization's corporate mission and vision as spelt out in the strategic plan.

In today's world corporate governance has assumed critical importance in both the socio-economic and political systems. Corporate governance receives high priority on the agenda of policymakers, financial institutions, investors, companies, academic and research institutions. The corporate governance structures and practices at the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) have been put in the limelight as being inefficient in meeting the vision of the Authority due to the recent changes in the corporate governance structures and practices.

The purpose of this study is to determine and establish corporate governance structures adopted by the KRA. This research was conducted through a case study since it is a research on one organization. Both primary and secondary data were used for the research study. Interview guides were administered among senior managers in KRA to collect primary data. A secondary data source was also employed through the use of previous documents to supplement the primary data. Content analysis was used to analyzing the data.

From the research study findings, it concludes that the corporate governance structures adopted by the KRA entail the distribution of rights and responsibilities among different participants in the corporation, board meeting frequency and board composition. The study also concludes that the corporate governance practices adopted by the KRA were such as the composition of the board. the size of the board. the level and type of director equity held in the company, and the composition of the various board committees.

The study recommends that there should be an increase in meetings frequency if the situation requires a high quality supervision and control. Beside, the board should also balance the costs and benefits of meetings frequency given that the study established that if the board increases the frequency of its meetings, the recovery from poor performance will be faster.