The scenarios below border on the application of ethical principles of accountants in the public sector context. a) You are an Assistant Intemal Audit Officer of a covered entity, and you have carricd out an internal audit of some sensitive operations of the entity. The audit covers allowances and bonuses paid or due for payment to the Board Chairman and other members of the board of govemors, including the Chief Executive Officer. The transactions and events smear profligacy and corruption, given the current financial difficulties that the entity faces. You took a snapshot of the audit evidence with your phone cameras and posted it on your old-school WhatsApp platform to buttress a claim of corruption you have made. This has attracted a lot of traffic to your post and one of the group members, who is a Journalist decided to spark a bigger debate on the matter in mainstream media. Your post became viral within 24 hours. b) In the carly part of December 2022, your Municipal Assembly received an unplanned visitation of the top political masters, who claimed to be on a political campaign and have decided to pay a "courtesy call" on the Municipal Chief Executive and the Assembly. The Chief Executive quickly asked that a financial package (brown envelope) be prepared for them. The amount is quite significant but unbudgeted. The visitors left the Assembly with a high commendation from the Chief Executive. Thereafter, he asked the Director of Finance to process the necessary documentation to support the brown envelope transactions. The Director of Finance expressed some misgivings about the transactions but advised the Accountant to record the brown envelope transaction as "goods and services" under "travel and transport", which he did without any objection. c) A Director of Finance of a covered entity has been at post for the last two years, and it has become an open secret in the entity that he does not know his job. Since his assumption, the entity has been not able to submit the required quarterly and annual public accounts to the Controller and Accocintant General. Asditors always raised many audit observations indicting the entity for bad accounting. The financial records were in shamble, the financial statements were in disarray and the cash management was unfortunate. In fact, he secured the job based on his political activism rather than accounting professionalism. d) The Director of Finance was touted as the smartest accounting person in Ghana by the Chief Executive Ofticer of the entity. He claims that he always keeps his back and delivers him from the corrupt league of public officers. He brags: This my Dircctor of Finance, I am yet to meet his kind of accountant. He understands the language, just discuss it with him and it is done. Whatever Page 5 of 10 you want. The guy is just saart of the smartest. Even "Dornelevo" himself can audit him and the report will be clean. I just love this guy, because be just knows how to cook the books well. Required: Discuss, for each of the scenarios (i) to (iv), one ethical code of professional accountants that has been breached and suggest a safeguard for each of them. (12 marks)
