Corruption*?!$#&!@#$

Ask anyone (well, maybe not everyone and maybe they would have to think it over for a bit) and they will tell you that they would expect the accountant today to be at the forefront in the fight against corruption. Some will go even further as to lay a significant portion of blame for the current level of corruption on accountants.

Their argument would go something like this; the accountants have failed in the first instance to put in place good systems to keep graft at bay. In the second instance they have failed in detection of corrupt practices and bringing to book corrupt officials or that they are necessarily implicated whenever there have been cases of corrupt practices.

You see, to the man in the street a most apparent and significant form of graft is one involving fraudulent or unfair monetary gain to the perpetrators. To the man in the streets again whenever you mention money, particularly institutional money, you are talking about accountants. To the man in the streets therefore, for an institution to lose (or for that matter gain) money through corrupt practices an accountant or a person with an accounting role needs necessarily to have been implicated compromised or side stepped. In other words, the institution’s accounting function failed in some way - probably because either the institution lacked qualified accountants or the accountant were themselves corrupt or ineffective.

Further, it can be argued that, accountants are already among the best-equipped group of professionals through their training and experience to participate in a major way in the fight against corruption. As Accountants, auditors or consultants they are trained to put in place good (internal control) systems to prevent corrupt practices and to detect weakness in existing systems. Further, their training can come in hardy in giving early warning of corrupt dealings in organisations and also in following audit trails to uncover corrupt deals and to catch the perpetrators.

What it all boils down to is that however much we might want to pretend otherwise, accountants are right in the middle of the corruption saga; either in what they have actually done or failed to do or in what the man in the streets perceives them to have done or failed to do.

In view of the foregoing the accountants, possibly through professional bodies, must strive to put the accountant at the frontline of the fight against corruption.

At the risk of being branded an opportunist, I am of the opinion that, accountants can even turn the whole thing to their advantage; they can style themselves as the ultimate anti-corruption professionals; the people to call when faced with corruption problems. That is to fend off corruption or to investigate cases of corruption. To my mind, top-notch accountants should be heading the anti-corruption out-fits alongside the lawyers!

Seriously though, the accounting bodies need to take deliberate steps to address corruption. Such steps include but are not limited to

• Working towards making it mandatory for public companies and the government to hire only qualified and registered accountants to head accounting functions of these institutions,
• Castigating or suspending Accountants implicated in corrupt practices,
• Demanding explanations from accountants whose organisations are involved in corrupt practices while under their watch whether such accountants were directly involved or not,
• Putting together a code of best practice (manual or standards) as a guide in procedures most abused by corrupt officials.
• Including work ethics as an examinable part of the CPA syllabus
  

In wrapping up, whatever road the accountants through the accounting bodies may choose to take, what is clearly apparent is that they are not and cannot be bystanders in the fight against corruption.