By Tabora Bojang
The managing director of Social Security and Housing Finance Corporation Mohammed Lamin Manjang has promised that the Corporation under his leadership will never act on executive directives to disburse any funds without appropriate means and procedures, as it was the case during the former regime.
Speaking at the social security and employers forum at Paradise Suites, Manjang who replaces Edward Graham as the Corporation’s MD, said what happened in the past at the corporation was that some people in the management and the board have over stepped their authorities by ignoring the laws and policies in place.
”We will not act on executive directives but I must also add that I am pleased to say that the current Government has not been issuing any executive directives for us to act on. What we need to do is to make sure that we have an effective board that really understand the issues to become an effective stewards of the assets of the membership of the corporation,” Manjang said.
He said the Corporation is in dialogue with relevant institutions to revise ways of recovering loans disbursed in the past without due process and putting in place mitigating strategies to ensure such is avoidable.
He informed the gathering that cabinet has approved a corporate good governance code that embeds in it many good practices to make sure the past is not repeating going forward.
According to the Manjang, many wrongs have happened in the past 22 years but he thinks SSFHC is in good place to make sure such things do not happen again.
“It is not about weaknesses in the laws or policies that were in place; it is about the Management and people who were representing on the board to be able to say no; this is not me, this is not how things supposed to be and there are lot of people who have done that in the past,” Manjang said.