“is Hud Lax on Ethical and Legal Violations?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2015/02/04/is-hud-lax-on-ethical-and-legal-violations-its-inspector-general-thinks-so/

In his paper “Is HUD lax on ethical and legal violations? Its inspector general thinks so,” Josh Hicks (2015) states that the calm attitude of HUD on ethical and legal violations by some of his senior officials is creating adverse effects on its corporate image and employee satisfaction. A hearing was called on account of the report issued by HUD’s Inspector General David Montoya, stating the agency hired a former lobbyist, known for slacker regulations and insider trading, to run a key policy office. Other senior officials were reported to be involved in the breach of ethical and legal code of conduct, mainly due to lack of accountability. The Inspector General also intends to quote in his report the examples where agency officials were involved in absolute misconduct but no strict disciplinary action was taken by the agency, including a deputy secretary who was accused of using his official email account to pressurize lawmakers to vote for spending legislation against the interests of the agency. The director of a regional HUD office was said to take a bribe for processing a loan but was placed on an administrative leave by the management whereas another official was shown on paid executive leave while he was sentenced to jail for three years on account of legal violations. HUD has been rated quite low in terms of employee satisfaction due to the outright violation of ethical and legal laws. According to Jereon Brown, HUD’s spokesman, the agency is looking forward to improving the accountability of its employees and planning to develop and implement consistency and timeliness in responding to the acts of misconduct and unethical behavior. He also mentioned that some forms of actions were taken by the agency with respect to the cases referred to in the testimony presented by David Montoya.

        The article highlights the importance of ethics in accounting and financial practices. In the dynamically changing business environment, it is imperative for educational institutions to make business students study the importance of ethics in Accounting. Students must be made to realize that accounting like medicine is a profession and not merely a means of making profits and the accountants like medical practitioners, have ethical duty to provide accurate information to the people. The education of ethics in Accounting should enable students to learn to associate accounting education with moral problems, understanding issues having ethical consequences, cultivating a sense of ethical responsibilities and skills needed to solve ethical issues and dealing with the uncertainties in the profession of Accounting. Knowledge of ethics can be of great help to the auditors and accountants in coping up with the ethical problems and making right decisions that might not be beneficial for the company but will help to serve the best interests of the people who rely on the accountants’ reporting. Stakeholders and shareholders also depend heavily on the financial statements and accounting details provided by the accountants to make decisions about investment. It is the ethical duty of accountants to provide them with correct information so that they can make well informed decisions. (Accounting ethics)