Salaries for company directors will soon be made public following the ongoing review of the Code of Corporate Governance for public companies in Kenya.

In an interview with the Nation during a corporate governance and financial reporting (Fire) award conference at the Safari Park Hotel in Nairobi on Thursday, Centre for Corporate Governance chairman Job Kihumba said the reviews seek to align the code to global best practices.

The code was last reviewed in 1999. The proposed amendments will require companies to clearly stipulate in their financial reports how much each director is paid at the end of every financial reporting period.

“In Kenya, we have a situation where directors’ compensation is shown in aggregate and you cannot know which director earns how much. In some markets, they have moved on and now require individual disclosure of how much each director has earned,’ Mr Kihumba told the Nation.

This will increase transparency, helping shareholders to deeply scrutinise the top management and usher in an era where shareholders demand pay to match productivity. Other proposed reviews will require companies to create the position of independent directors, whose role would be to act as the check and balance on powers of board chairpersons.

Mr Kihumba said that the position of an independent director in public-listed companies would be a form of proper corporate governance procedure. He said this role is pertinent given the fact that the board has the responsibility of enforcing corporate governance in private companies.

“This is work that is still not in the public domain. It is being done and the Board of the Centre for Corporate Governance is aware that this process will be undertaken at the board level and also at the management level,” Mr Kihumba noted. He added that a revised code for corporate governance should be in place by March 2013.

According to the Daily Nation a review of the code would also require companies to create shareholder associations that would be used as empowerment tools for shareholders on what is required of them in terms of their companies’ operations. A shareholder association was created a decade ago, but has since become inactive.