SEC Annual Report: No show of Indrani and thankless to ex-DG Malik

In what is perhaps a case of sheer oversight or disregard for detail and courtesy, the 2011 Annual Report of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has failed to recognise the Immediate Chairperson and Director General who were part of the organisation for almost entirety of the year under review.

On record former Chairperson Indrani Sugathadasa and Director General Malik Cader were on the job for 11 of the 12 months of 2011, yet the SEC’s Annual Report has not only been conspicuous by its silence but gone thankless to former DG whilst the former Chairperson too had been downplayed.

The SEC’s 2011 Annual Report released yesterday hadn’t included Sugathadasa in the profiling of Commissioners. The best practice would have been to include her with a note indicating duration of her stewardship during the year (11 months) as it is done in annual reports.  The same could have been done for Cader too in the profiling of senior management of the SEC in the Annual Report.

Top career civil servant Sugathadasa served as Chairperson of the SEC from early May 2010 to 30 November 2011, for 19 months. The only reference to past Chairperson and thanks came from Acting Director General Prof. Hareendra Dissabandara, though he failed to mention his predecessor and longstanding senior official at the Secretariat Malik Cader.

The usual best practice is that if a senior executive and in this case Director General has left the organization just before the release of the Annual Report, the incumbent administration makes it a point to include the person/s as part of records.

Cader left the SEC on 1 November 2011 after being the Director General for one year, which was the climax of his 13-year stint at the SEC.

Analysts said that including reference or description of immediate past Chairman and Director General may not be required by law, but is part of best practices.

“Though these ex-members of the SEC may not personally want any recognition or acknowledgement, the onus is on the organisation to duly record same, especially since it is concerning the Chairman and the Director General, the two topmost positions in the organisation and the period under review in the Annual Report were under their leadership of it,” they added.

Furthermore, a cursory look at the SEC’s Annual Report by a foreign investor may also give the wrong impression that the current administration, especially the Chairman and Acting Director General, had been in office for the whole of 2011.

However, a closer scrutiny by a reader for details in the Annual Report could indicate the key changes.