Budget 2022 requires all large-cap companies to have one female director by September 2022 and all other listed companies by January 2023.
WHEN the policy of having at least 30% female decision-makers in the top echelon of the corporate sector was introduced 10 years ago under the 10th Malaysia Plan (2011-2015), the percentage then was only 7.7%.
A decade on, the figure had only gone up by 10%. As of Oct 1, women held 17.7% of board positions across all listed companies. Even in the top 100 listed companies, the percentage is only 25.5%.
There are also 252 listed companies with an all-male board, up from 248 in 2020.
In the latest Corporate Governance Monitor report, the Securities Commission highlighted that there is a risk of the progress plateauing as the percentage of board positions held by women has hovered around 17% overall and 25% for the top 100 listed companies since 2019.
The government is cognisant of the fact that efforts need to be intensified and continued – to press forward with the concept aimed at reducing gender imbalance and recognising women’s contributions.
As such, Budget 2022 requires all large-cap companies to have one female director by September 2022 and all other listed companies by January 2023.
Institute of Corporate Directors Malaysia (ICDM) said this is significant to the development of corporate Malaysia, adding that boards with at least one-third women representation correlated with 38% higher median return on equity than boards with no women representation.
“This is a reflection of the importance of advocating for greater diversity on boards,” said its president and chief executive officer Michele Kythe Lim.
“As part of ICDM’s mandate and vision to support the development of directors, we look at placing high-quality directors to better support the evolving needs of boards and companies, and that includes women directors.”
As of September this year, there are close to 700 directors in ICDM’s directors registry, she said – 32% of whom are women with diverse skill sets and competencies such as sustainability, change management and digitalisation.
“It is crucial for companies to have a balanced board composition to ensure resilience and sustainability of businesses,” said Lim.
“A growing body of global evidence has shown that boards with a healthy number of female directors deal more effectively with risk as they are intrinsically more empathetic and cooperative, hence better at addressing the concerns of stakeholders.
“The move is a welcomed development to accelerate gender diversity on boards. Companies should make it a priority to move more swiftly towards gender balanced boards with at least 30% women representation on the board,” she said.
Another initiative under Budget 2022 that is deemed timely is the RM13mil allocation for the Bukit Aman Sexual, Women and Child Investigations Division (D11), including the creation of 100 new posts.
While expressing her gratitude to the Government for the allocation, D11 assistant director ACP Siti Kamsiah Hassan also thanked all the enforcement agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) which led in the protection of children and women.
Women’s Centre for Change programme director Karen Lai said that while increasing funding for the D11 police division that handles sexual and gender-based violence is good, it is equally important that gender sensitivity towards the victim and the victim’s case be enhanced.
Other incentives for women in the workforce in Budget 2022 include RM230mil which will go towards capacity building such as the Program DanaNITA under Mara and TEKUNITA under Tekun (National Entrepreneur Group Economic Fund) to especially help female entrepreneurs affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The MyKasih Kapital is another programme to help women generate income from home. Incentives will include a startup capital, along with training on how to run online businesses. This will benefit some 5,000 women, including 2,000 single mothers.
To ease the burden of working mothers, RM30mil has been allocated to set up childcare facilities at government premises, especially public hospitals and universities.
Additionally, there will also be an extension of individual income tax exemption up to RM3,000 for childcare centres and kindergarten fees until the assessment year 2023.
Another notable initiative is the distribution of personal hygiene kits to 130,000 young women from the B40 community.
Penang Women’s Development Corporation chief executive officer Ong Bee Leng lauded the efforts to address period poverty, adding that the hygiene kits would come in handy for young women from socio-economically challenged backgrounds.
“For some poor families, the priority is putting food on the table, paying utility bills and buying other essentials. With their meagre income stretched to the limit, buying sanitary pads has to take a back seat.
“The implication is that without pads, menstruating girls will not get to go to school or go out of the house,” she said.
