June 10, 2014
I read about the way Americans came up with a law on corporate governance called the Sarbanese-Oxley Act and wished if something like that could happen in Africa.
I read about the way Americans came up with a law on corporate governance called the Sarbanese-Oxley Act and wished if something like that could happen in Africa.
I am not interested in the law itself, but in the way in which two individuals from two different political persuasions introduced Bills that eventually led to the landmark eponymous law.
Sox-online.com writes: “In 2002, Paul Sarbanes, a Democratic Senator from Maryland, and Michael Garver Oxley, a Republican Congressman from Ohio serving in the House of Representatives, each introduced Bills in their respective bodies that would result in legislation that would later bear their name. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 passed both houses by overwhelming margins; 423 to 3 in the House and 99 to 0 in the Senate.”
What struck me is the difference between this approach and the polarization in most African countries. The problem in most African nations is that instead of political parties, we have political cults. And these political cults are both from the ruling and opposition parties. Normally, the ruling and opposition cults are just two sides of the same coin.
