Benin report - Institut Africain de la Gouvernance

CHAPTER FIVE: CORPORATE GOVERNANCE__________________________________________________________________________the unfortunate findings made by the Chamber of Accounts during the auditingof some public companies.710. In the second case, the accounting system, which comprises severalaccounting methods, is not well applied. Most often, preference is given to thegeneral accounting system to the detriment of other accounting methods (e.g.cost accounting and stores accounting). Consequently, it is impossible toevaluate some aspects of management due to a lack of data from costaccounting and other accounting documents required for assessingmanagement.711. Furthermore, as regards accountability, the executives and managers of privatecompanies have much better access to relevant information than those of thepublic sector. On the other hand, in public companies, information oncorporate bodies is more readily available and the accounting and auditingstandards are more compliant with the laws in force.ii.Conclusions of the CRM712. Compliance with production standards and dissemination of informationby companies. Players and mechanisms that generate macro andmicroeconomic data. As a general rule, there seems to be no information onand within Beninese companies. At the macroeconomic level, sectoral marketstudies and data are lacking – a situation that deprives companies of goodknowledge of their environment and threatens the very survival of some ofthem. Similarly, BenInfo, the country‟s social and economic informationsystem, is poorly utilised, hardly updated and of little use to companies. Publiccompanies are also not exhaustively listed. Indeed, of the 61 companies orpublic organisations, only 21 are known in detail by the Ministry of Financeand Economy. Even then, the largest company in Benin does not even featureon this list.713. Although information processing is one of its main functions, INSAE does nothave updated information on the population and management characteristics ofBeninese companies. According to the Benin governance report prepared bythe ADB in 2005, difficulties stem from the lack of a statistics developmentplan and harmonisation of data production sources.714. At the microeconomic level, apart from banks and other financial institutionsthat are equipped with a functioning internal audit service (as required by theregional banking commission and their majority shareholders), very fewinstitutions in Benin have internal audit services. According to the peopleinterviewed by the CRM, accounting or management software packages arehard to find in Benin‟s public companies. Several executives of these publiccompanies and organisations are reluctant to use computers, and it was whenthe younger crop of civil servants came into action that good use could bemade of the information technology. Generally, even when this technology isavailable, the micro or macroeconomic and financial information is produced238