|Should management/shareholders and Shariah board be more accountable? could this be done via an annual participants meeting?|
The shareholders can be more accountable for corporate governance but this is mainly for the board as they work for the shareholders. The principal agent relationship!! Yes I feel that shariah board should be more responsible and accountable for instance to be more elaborate on their decisions and have it written down for public inspection. They should also speak even at the expenses of losing their position. Fees should not be a hindrance.
On the other hand there must be a process to safeguard them against directors who get rid of them because they speak the truth. They should not be left at the mercy of the directors to fire them when there is no genuine reason for doing so.
At the AGM many issues can be clarified provided it is put on the agenda. Resolution passing mechanism should be in place as per companies act (Faizal Manjoo).
Yes, it should sit together in meeting to discuss unsettle issues. It could be better if they can settle any pending issues and at the same time they inform to participant especially related to industry (Anonymous).
Shareholders will not accept such intrusion in their affairs; the idea looks good, but not workable in practice; how to nominate policyholders representatives? I'm in the opinion of giving the SSB more authority and information to ensure the compliance and be the voice of policyholders; moreover, we should not forget that regulators are -by definition- protecting policyholders' interests and monitoring the compliance (Chakib Abouzaid, Takaful Re).
Yes. In line with transparency a greater degree of involvement by the participant is necessary to give a practical share to the co-operative principles of Takaful operations.. Hence it is necessary to constitute a participants council which would meet with the management and the shariah board members to interact with them and satisfy themselves that the operations are in line with acceptable corporate governance principles (Mohammed Muqeem, Amanah Takaful, Dubai).
Since the policyholders under Takaful are the contributors to the scheme, annual participants meeting helps in collective accountability on all concerned (Anonymous, Kuwait).
Since all three components of the corporate governance namely; the Shari'ah board, the management and the shareholders are equally but respectively accountable with Shari'ah compliance in all aspects of policies, procedures, technicalities, products, business, operation and management thus, it is utmost important for all to exchange mechanisms and share views in regular dialogues with day to day's decisions , actions and achievement so to establish an atmosphere of harmonization, compliance, standardization while avoiding confusion and overlapping.
It therefore suggested here that:
(i) All three components namely; the Shari'ah board, the management and the shareholders shall respectively on monthly basis hold corporate review or postmortem (muhasabah) session on three fundamental aspects :
(a) What have been planned?
(ii) Shari'ah board shall hold monthly session on decision making / Shari'ah solution to provide decisions / Shari'ah Solutions on all relevant aspects of the company. The decision shall be made with proper understanding (on relevant divine rulings, Shari'ah standard, Fiqh and other relevant policies) in accordance with applied Shari'ah principles and divine spirit, which shall neither be in fear or in favor per se.
(iii) Shari'ah board shall not only to function in decision making but shall also undertake a monthly audit exercise to ensure the decided solutions have been carried out by the management in accordance with the Shari'ah spirit.
(iv) Shari'ah Board shall prepare a comprehensive annual report on total decisions with relevant facts and phenomena of the year, the audit report on performance and future suggested plan affecting Shari'ah compliance.
(v) All three components (the Shari'ah board, the management and the shareholders) shall hold an annual review session before the annual report is prepared.
(vi) Two components (the Shari'ah board and the shareholders) shall hold a combined annual general meeting (AGM) with comprehensive postmortem, report, presentation and future plan for the company. This shall be witnessed by the selected key management team (Prof. Dr. Md. Ma'sum Billah, Middle Eastern Business World (MBW) Group).
So far this has been done through trust place to Ulama in the SB, which are members and recommended by the National Sharia Council. Conducting participant meeting has not been thought of. However the process of control or more rigid sharia audit is very important to ensure that credibility can be maintained through a proper process (Muhammad Ismail - An Indonesian actuary).
Yes, every year in policyholders board meeting (Anonymous).
Yes, the management should be more accountable to participants. This can happen through transparency in reporting and representation of participants in decision making boards, though putting accountability benchmarks on Shariah boards can lead to exploitation by managers and business operators. Annual meetings and occasional discussion forums will be very helpful (Abass Mohamed, Takaful Insurance of Africa).
Each transaction of a Takaful operator is an outcome of a collective decision/work of the management & Sharia board. Whilst management is accountable on managerial decisions, Sharia board is accountable on Islamic Sharia issues. Hence we can say both parties are equally accountable.
In Malaysia, the regulatory and supervisory framework is very tight. The Central bank adopts the policing and consumer protection roles and performs these diligently (Anonymous).
An annual participants' meeting may not be necessary. However, participants could be invited to the AGM of the company to listen to the Sharia'h report as well as to be comforted on other corporate governance issues (Solidarity, Bahrain).
Annual participants' meeting should be held to obtain first-hand feedback but accountability: No. For a pure co-operative: yes (Ashraf Ali Siddiqui, Takaful Pakistan Limited).
Yes (Takaful Ikhlas).
They should meet regularly, at least once in a quarter (Muhammad Umer, Takaful Pakistan Ltd).
Yes, especially to indulge SSB with them (Dr. Shaban M. Barwari, T'azur company).