A change in gov­ern­ment should not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly mean a change in the board­rooms of state en­ter­pris­es, ac­cord­ing to the UWI Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness, which is call­ing for a shift away from po­lit­i­cal pa­tron­age in board ap­point­ments and to­ward gov­er­nance based on mer­it, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and the le­gal frame­works that gov­ern state-owned en­ter­pris­es (SOEs).

De­spite the idea that board mem­bers must im­me­di­ate­ly re­sign fol­low­ing a change in ad­min­is­tra­tion, the in­sti­tu­tion stress­es that di­rec­tors ap­point­ed to SOE boards, par­tic­u­lar­ly those in­cor­po­rat­ed un­der the Com­pa­nies Act, are legal­ly ob­lig­at­ed to act in the best in­ter­est of the com­pa­ny and its share­hold­ers, not the gov­ern­ment or any po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

“The man­age­ment of SOE Boards should not be dic­tat­ed by changes in po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship,” the in­sti­tu­tion states. “Di­rec­tors, par­tic­u­lar­ly in com­pa­nies gov­erned by the Com­pa­nies Act, are legal­ly bound to serve the in­ter­ests of the en­ti­ty and its share­hold­ers, not the par­ty in pow­er. While statu­to­ry bod­ies may in­volve di­rect min­is­te­r­i­al ap­point­ments, even these should aim for pro­fes­sion­al­ism and con­ti­nu­ity.”