Despite having one of the most applauded codes of corporate governance in the form of King IV, South Africa has a growing governance problem. Ample evidence of this is to be found in both the public and private sectors. Examples include the unethical conduct of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), such as Eskom, PIC and Transnet; EOH’s failure to identify compromising deals in its silos; and food safety breaches at Tiger Brands (Francis, 2019). These high-profile instances are but the tip of the iceberg. The insufficient number of high-performing institution boards and the prevalence of organisational failures are national issues. At the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) 106th anniversary in 2018, then Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa (Ramano, 2018) declared:

We need also to act with urgency and purpose to restore SOEs as drivers of economic growth and development…. Corruption in SOEs and other public institutions has undermined the government’s programmes to address poverty and unemployment, weakened key institutions, discouraged investment and contributed to division within the ANC and the alliance.

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