Financial Reporting and Ethics - The Institute of Chartered ...

CORPORATE GOVERNANCEILLUSTRAUSTRATION TION 11.3Gbolahan Akinlawon has just taken his salary of N50,000 for the month.He has to pay his driver N10,000 and child’s school fee of N15,000,leaving him with only N25,000 to run family expenses. GbolahanAkinlawon’s mother in-law arrived two days later, with a request forfinancial assistance of N30,000to roof her collapsing building. GbolahanAkinlawon tenses up on what to do. Advise him accordingly.SUGGESTED SOLUTION 11.3The principle of fairness never imposes the obligation to treat everybodyand every case in the same way. Experts who handle ethical issuesinsist that fairness prevails by treating different people in different waysso long as it is logical to so discriminate, a premise or circumstancewhich would hold sway for others if they were in similar situations.Gbolahan Akinlawon should pay his driver and child’s school fee, allamounting to N25,000. He is entitled to prioritizing by honouring hiscontractual obligations to the driver and taking care of his immediatedependents. He is, therefore, not obliged to give anything to his motherin-law.(b)(c)The Principle of Co-operationoperation, , Solidarity or CommunityThis rule of conduct enjoins everybody to be concerned with thewell-being of each other. For as long as a person neglects to dothe bidding, the individual is undermining his own fulfillmentas a member of the human race. Certain people believe that it isnaive to be over-trusting. They believe that the principle ofsolidarity is altruistic; that it is as risky as the fate of the biblical‘good Samaritan.’ They, therefore, hold that it gives advantageto ignore other people’s conveniences and hold fast to one’sinterests, in the spirit of “nice people take last and worst” or“nice people get trampled upon, mean people end up on top.” Ifeverybody strives to cooperate and work towards the well-beingof each other, with time and consistency, “loyal and lovingpeople” identify themselves and form partnership, leading tofairly good results. On the other side, there are grabbers oropportunists who engage themselves in trying to reap wherenothing has been sown. They ‘win’ a few times, though. But theco-operative people win most of the time.The Principle of RationalityThe rule here is that one should always act intelligently or reasonably.Perhaps, people desire to act intelligently all the time, except insituations where self-interests by way of emotion come in. It has221