Governance disclosures in the South African Banking Sector: a case study of African Bank

Abstract: In South Africa, a number of banks have failed since 1990. It appears that governance, compliance and liquidity issues may be the reason for these failures. The purpose of this study was to analyse the governance disclosures of African Bank. The study analysed the bank’s disclosure in terms of the governance and regulatory frameworks that all banks must comply with in South Africa, namely, the Companies Act 71 of 2008, the JSE listing requirements and the King III Report on Corporate Governance. The study was qualitative in nature. Data was collected from published summaries and credible websites. An empirical study was conducted to examine the extent to which African Bank’s compliance with governance principles was disclosed in its integrated annual report. The results reveal that African Bank did not fully comply with the governance disclosures in terms of King III. The lack of transparency in the disclosure resulted in a distorted picture of African Bank being portrayed in the integrated annual report to the stakeholders of the entity as months later African Bank was placed under curatorship