Listed firms told to increase women on their boards

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda’s listed firms need to increase women on their boards to enhance inclusivity, according the Capital Markets Authority CEO Keith Kalyegira.

Kelyegira, who spoke during this year’s International Women’s Day at the Uganda Securities Exchange under the theme ‘Women’s Role in Finance and Investment’ on March 13, said the number of women in the boards of the listed companies is disproportionately lower than that of men.

“Uganda Clays Ltd has 3 women out of 10 board members, BAT has one woman out of 8 board members, Bank of Baroda has no women representative on the board, New Vision has 3 women out of 11 where the chairperson is a woman, Umeme has 2 women out of 11 board members while, DFCU 1has out of 6 board members,” he said.

He also said there are only 3 women chief financial officer’s out of 20 in the local financial institutions and only 3 CEO’s of financial institutions out of the 24 licensed banks, a trend he says need to be reversed.

Paul Bwiso, the CEO at the USE said there’s need to take a deliberate effort to ensure gender inclusion in all the policies.

“We not only have to pass reporting regulations and requirements for gender inclusion, we will need to introduce products that women would be interested in such as for the rural women so that they also invest in eh stock exchange,” he said.

This comes at the time the country’s eight domestic listed firms are in their final stages to announce their financial performance for the year ended 2017.

The celebration was supported by Sustainable Stock Exchanges (SSE) initiative, UN Global Compact, International Finance Corporation, UN Women, Women in EFT’s and the World Federation of Stock Exchanges.