Safaricom has won this year’s Champions of Governance Awards (CoG),  just three weeks after emerging the top taxpayer in the country. The mobile operator's CEO Bob Collymore was named the Chief Executive Officer of the Year. Safaricom beat  46 other organisations, in which 19 chairpersons, 26 CEOs and 5 Company Secretaries were lined for the Award.

[Read: Safaricom Wins Tax Race]

The excellence in Corporate Governance awards are purposed to recognize practice and application of good corporate governance in institutional boards, while identifying innovations in organisations that support good governance therefore encouraging corporate bodies to focus on enhancement of good institutional governance.

The chairman of Tharaka-Nithi Sacco George Mati, was named Chairman of the year, while NIC Bank's, Secretary Livingston Murage won the Company Secretary of the year Award.

The Institute of Certified Public Secretaries of Kenya (ICPSK) attributes poor corporate governance to failure of organizations to tap services of company secretaries as required by law. According to ICPSK, 60% of the 600,000 companies in the country do not have company secretaries, a service which can be offered by a consultant or on a full-time basis.