In today’s Ghanaian business environment, technical competence alone is no longer sufficient to guarantee organisational success. Companies, public institutions, educational establishments, and not-for-profit organisations increasingly face difficult ethical questions involving financial pressure, procurement, conflicts of interest, regulatory compliance, fraud, accountability, and the responsible use of organisational resources.
The ethical environment has become particularly challenging because wrongdoing does not always present itself as an obvious request to steal money or falsify an account. It may begin with an apparently harmless instruction: “Just process it, we will regularize the documents later.” It may be pressure to overlook a procurement irregularity because a project is urgent, to recognize revenue prematurely to meet a target, or to approve expenditure because “management has already agreed.”
In this article, I discuss current ethical challenges such as pressure for financial and operational results, non-transparent “shadow deals,” pay-to-play practices, corruption, theft, and outright fraud, which need to be examined dispassionately.
For Chartered Accountants practicing under the Institute of Chartered Accountants-Ghana (ICAG), these developments present both a serious responsibility and an opportunity to enhance public and corporate trust.
Ethics is bigger than obeying the law
Business ethics involves the principles and standards that guide decisions about what is right, fair, and responsible in business. One challenge is that ethical behavior and legal compliance are not always the same. Something can meet the minimum legal requirements yet still raise significant concerns about fairness, transparency, and integrity. This is where professional judgment becomes essential.
For example, consider an accountant who discovers that expenditures have been deliberately split into smaller amounts to avoid requiring a higher level of approval. While each payment may have the necessary documentation and might even have gone through the accounting system without issue, the essence of this arrangement should alarm a professional accountant.
Consider a scenario where a senior executive asks a junior officer to postpone recording an expense until the next financial year. This request is justified by the organization’s desire to meet its performance targets for the current year. The executive might rationalize this request by stating, “We will record it eventually.”
The ethical Accountant must look beyond the convenience of the instruction and consider its effect on the truthfulness of the financial information.
The dangerous territory of the ethical grey zone
One important issue I have raised consistently is the “blurry” nature of ethical issues faced by government and business leaders, where there may not always be one correct course of action. This deserves particular attention in Ghana. Not every ethical problem comes with a clear label announcing, “This is corruption.”
Sometimes the dilemma involves competing legitimate interests.
- Should an organisation terminates hundreds of workers to remain financially viable?
- Should a bank continue financing a profitable customer when concerns emerge about that customer’s business practices?
- Should a public institution proceed with an urgently needed procurement when aspects of the required process have not been completed?
- Should an auditor challenge a long-standing client aggressively when doing so could damage a commercially important relationship?
These situations require more than knowledge of accounting standards. They require integrity, objectivity, professional competence, due care and the courage to challenge decisions where necessary.
When wrongdoing slowly becomes normal
Perhaps one of the most dangerous organizational threats is what I describe as “creeping normalcy”. These are situations in which conduct that would previously have been considered unacceptable gradually becomes tolerated and eventually regarded as normal.
This phenomenon is particularly dangerous because ethical collapse rarely begins with the largest fraud. It starts small and finally becomes a major scandal.
A supporting document is missing, but payment is processed because the supplier is known to management. An officer uses an organizational vehicle privately, and nobody objects. Procurement procedures are bypassed because “this one is urgent.” A manager recruits a relative without declaring the relationship. An accountant is asked to make a questionable adjustment and complies because “that is how we have always done it.”
One exception becomes two. Two become 20, and 20 grows to perpetuity. Eventually, the abnormal becomes normal. By the time a major scandal emerges, investigators often discover that warning signs had existed for years.
For boards and management teams in Ghana, therefore, the question should not simply be, “Have we experienced a major fraud?”
A better question is: “What behaviours are we currently tolerating that could become tomorrow’s scandal?”
Why good people sometimes make bad ethical decisions
It would be comforting to believe that unethical behaviour is committed only by fundamentally dishonest people. Intelligent and otherwise respected professionals can rationalise questionable conduct.
“It is only temporary.”
“Everyone does it.”
“I was following instructions.”
“The organisation needs this contract.”
“If I don’t approve it, somebody else will.”
“No one is losing money.”
“We will correct it next month.”
These rationalisations are powerful because they allow individuals to reinterpret wrongdoing as necessary, harmless or even beneficial. According to Donald Cressey’s Fraud Triangle, three conditions must exist before fraud occurs: These are Pressure, Opportunity and Rationalization.
We need to highlight the importance of understanding the rationalizations used by intelligent leaders who recognize an ethical issue yet proceed to make the wrong decision. The best defense is an organizational culture in which employees can question decisions without fear and where senior executives are subject to the same ethical standards as junior employees.
Why are ethics policies alone not enough
Many Ghanaian organizations have codes of conduct. They have beautifully written policies covering conflicts of interest, procurement, gifts, fraud, whistleblowing and financial management. Yet scandals still happen. Having an ethics policy does not make an organization ethical. Employees observe behaviour more carefully than they read manuals. If management publicly speaks about integrity but privately rewards employees who achieve results by questionable means, employees quickly understand the organization’s real values.
Boards and people charged with governance must consequently move from ethics on paper to ethics in practice.
Performance assessments should evaluate how results are achieved, not merely whether targets are met. Whistleblowing mechanisms must protect people who raise genuine concerns. Conflicts of interest should be declared and properly managed. Ethical failures by senior executives must attract consequences. Most importantly, leadership must demonstrate the behaviour expected from everyone else.
Chartered Accountants as ambassadors of ethics
Chartered Accountants occupy a unique position in this Business Ecosystem. We prepare and interpret financial information. We design internal controls. We advise management. We audit transactions. We manage budgets. We assess risks. We approve payments. We support boards and audit committees. Chartered Accountants are often regarded as ambassadors of ethics, whether we consciously recognize that role or not.
An accountant who knowingly processes an improper transaction cannot simply defend the decision by saying, “My boss instructed me.” Professional responsibility goes beyond obedience to organizational hierarchy. At times, professional integrity requires asking uncomfortable questions:
What is the commercial substance of this transaction?
Who benefits from this payment?
Why was the normal approval process bypassed?
Has this conflict of interest been disclosed?
Would we be comfortable if this transaction appeared on the front page of the National Papers tomorrow?
Speaking up requires professional courage
Ghana does not merely need Chartered accountants who understand ethics. We need professionals who can speak confidently about ethical business issues.
Speaking up does not mean becoming unnecessarily confrontational. A professional accountant can respectfully challenge an instruction. For example, we may ask, ‘Could we review the supporting documentation before approval?’
Integrity is an economic asset
Ghana needs investment, stronger businesses, sustainable public finances and greater confidence in public institutions. All depend partly on trust. Investors must trust financial statements. Taxpayers must trust public institutions. Shareholders must trust directors. Banks must trust borrowers’ financial information. Citizens must trust that public resources are being managed responsibly. Where trust disappears, the cost of doing business rises.
Ethics should therefore not be regarded as an abstract philosophical subject reserved for professional examinations and annual seminars. It has direct consequences for investment, corporate reputation, employee morale, access to capital and national development.
The challenge before Ghana’s accountants
The Chartered Accountant of 2026 must therefore be more than a technically competent producer of financial statements. We must become guardians of institutional integrity.
We can demonstrate this by recognizing ethical danger before it becomes scandal, challenging the gradual normalization of improper conduct, resisting pressure to manipulate financial information, strengthening internal control, supporting genuine whistleblowing arrangements, and advising boards and management without fear or favor.
The Accounting profession is built fundamentally on public trust. Every time a Chartered Accountant signs a report, approves a transaction or provides professional advice, somebody relies on our judgment. The ultimate test of professionalism therefore comes not when doing the right thing is convenient, but when doing the right thing carries a personal or commercial cost.
Ghana’s businesses and public institutions do not need accountants who merely ask, “Can this transaction be processed?”. We need Chartered Accountants who are courageous enough to ask the most important questions:
“Should it be processed? Is it right? Is it transparent? And would I be prepared to defend this decision publicly?”
In an era of increasingly complex ethical challenges, those questions may prove just as important to Ghana’s development as any numbers appearing in our financial statements.
About the Author:
Michael Kwakye, PhD, CA., is a Chartered Accountant, consultant and adjunct lecturer with interests in accounting, finance, taxation, international economics, public financial management and business strategy.
By Dr Michael Kwakye, Chartered Accountant
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