Accountability

Where did the statement come from. I was talking with a fellow at the Community Centre and he mentioned a conversation he had recently with a judge. He quoted: "The problem of our day is "accountability"

What did he mean?

Do we not have good accounting systems? Do we not have good professional organizations to who professionals are accountable? Why is it the first idea that came to mind was "accountability", and this from one of the leading judges?

I think when we look at the idea of accountability we should first use the framework of global education. So first we look at the systems. So let me overview my article on Accountability.

Systems awareness
Individual Perspective awareness
Health of Planet. Awareness
Involvement, organizations
Teachers, students and parents working together.

Almost as I write the idea of the framework for my thinking I get a sense that the accountability may have an over reaching influence. But before writing attempt to understand how accountability can change. I think that accountability is an extension of the values in a society. And what are those values? I am reminded of the exercise we did on "responsibility" as part of the Toronto 2000 project back in 1980. We were each asked to write down the responsibilities that we have. And every one went on their merry way writing down the responsibilities that they thought they had in life. Governmental re taxes etc., community, family and individual. Responsibility had a number of focuses that we could each identify for ourselves. We then went on to identify how we manifested our responsibilities.. The results of the exercise were interesting. Some people did not find they had any responsibilities and others who felt they had them spent little or no time manifesting them. In fact responsibility turned out to be more of a notion that a manifested behaviour. On a personal level, I have done a great deal of work on the notion of responsibility - probably more than most on this planet - yet I cannot say I am the most responsible person on the planet. So there is a distinction between the notion, the word and the action.

(I first was introduced to the exercise above on responsibility at a Toronto 2000 meeting in 1980. I think that we identified the importance of responsibility in regards to the attachment of rights to responsibilities. That where a right exists, an inherent responsibility exists. In 1981 I participated in a Global think tank that also addressed the issue of Rights and Responsibilities. In our local chapter we noted this important aspect of the relationship, but we did notice as we summarized our position on Human Rights, the notion of Responsibility seemed to fall away. In our summary position I pointed out that the nature of our distillation process allowed this connection to fall away. This experience repeated itself twice during the final program of the Planetary Initiative for the World We Choose even to the final presentation at OISE. I personally challenged the organizers in the final session noting that this connection was being dropped, not for any insidious reason, but because of a deficiency in process. A milestone was reached and the final paper included this connection. In the Newspaper publication that went to the United Nations, after I had seen the draft copy, and noted again that this connection was dropped Donald Keys, the founder and organizer of the PI event saw to it personally that such an inclusion was in the final presentation. This was my first experience with process. Years later, 1993 at the preparatory conference for the Vienna Human Rights and Democracy Conference held in Montreal this experience duplicated itself. I persevered and while I do not believe I had the success that I would have preferred, officials in the head office in UNESCO almost assured me that I had a major effect on their process and program. Later that same year at the World Future Society gathering on the issues of Human Rights and Responsibilities a dignitary reported to our Conference from Vienna an the success in Vienna, yet he did nothing to identify this unique relationship.)

In dealing with accountability, I believer that the same result may be experienced but it may be more profound because the notion of accountability is even more vague.

But lets look to the systems involved. Economics energy ethics and Health related. Is there accountability?

I, as a Chartered Accountant, would like to address accountability in my own profession. Not from an accusatory perspective, but rather what we have come to relate to in common language as "GAAP" which means to you the person in the street, " Generally Accepted Accounting Principles". Accountants are most diligent when applying these on a basis consistently, without giving much thought to the true meaning. Let me give you an example. Why is it that the governments books treat assets as expenses? Without going any further into the question of economic accountability it is absolutely true that our government does not have a balance sheet that identifies its assets: i.e. roads, infrastructure, hospitals, and schools. I will not explore this any further and I will conclude that our economic system is not accountable.

Energy. Is there an accountable "energy" aspect to our society. Do we account for the difference in total cost of various energy systems? I am not aware of any such "accountability".

Ethics? What organization in our society administers ethics? Is it the professional bodies "Law Society" or " The Institute of Chartered Accountants"? Who are they accountable to? Themselves? Or society in general..

Health - What is the "accountability of the "health" profession. Where does it stand on natural healing methods? Where does it stand on the cost to the public of drugs that heal? Who is the Canadian Medical Association accountable to?

Who does the President of the company account to? The shareholders? Or society? Who does the father in a family account to? His wife? His mistress? His children? his church or religion? Who is he accountable to? Himself? And as he accounts to himself what does he choose to do?
Let’s look at myself. Here I am in Cuba, writing a piece on "accountability" Who am I accountable to?
It seems I am accountable to no one but myself. I have taken on this vision of a 1000 day plan and I am accountable to no one person. Yet I attempt to use my time productively to whomever may or may not read this piece, hoping to catch their imagination as to the veracity of my observations into what is obvious.

To what end? To facilitate change. To provide the tools and insights into change. Are these Marxist machinations? Or is it because I do not have anything better to do with my time? I think this may be true. If I were chasing money or women or self indulging in drugs, alcohol etc. I would not be able to do this work. Do I want to be acknowledged for this? I guess yes, although acknowledgment is not as meaningful to me as actually seeing this information work. I think back to waiting in the airport and I noticed this woman teaching here two children different walking exercises. Including various disciplines.

Backwards, sideways skipping etc. I truly felt empowered noticing the effect this was having on the attention of her children. I later commented to her on this. She did not think too much on it, but it was a good lesson she was giving.

Let’s look at the systems involved. There seems to be a number of different systems involved. Government systems seem to be in the forefront. International Governments such as the United Nations really is accountable to no one.

Since writing the previous information, many things have happened in life - each with its own reflective nature on "responsibility".

I wrote a letter asking the profession which I am a member of to evaluate the objective of the 1000 day plan. To get the conversation going within the profession on how we might raise $100 billion dollars for the children of the world. And what wa the response of my profession. They refused. Maybe we could pay them the compliment and say that they did not understand what I was asking them to do. This is certainly possible. But after three go rounds with various levels of the profession, I, under advise, resigned from the profession. I can no longer call myself a Chartered Accountant. I am looking for the terminology to describe my situation. I tried the term "Former CA" but friends thought it indicated that I was thrown out for some reason. Truly I have not found a better term yet.

Also during this last period I have visited the United Nations to see who might be "accountable" for the fund raising project I am suggesting. Stephen Lewis, Canada’s representative at the UNICEF, indicated that the amount that I was going after was too large to be believable.. So much for his support. Who is he accountable to for not assisting? And I could go on with a number of UNICEF representatives who have chosen to ignore my presentation to them. And to whom are they accountable? Carole Bellamy the Executive Director of UNICEF refused to accept the KPMG Report and its recommendation to move the Greeting Card Operation (GCO) out of New York. She is aware of our project and has done nothing. Who is she accountable to?

And so it goes.

The judge was right. We do have a problem and it has to do with accountability.

To whom are you accountable? And how do you go about doing this?

To me, I am accountable to every person on the planet. Buckminster Fuller suggested this was a good thing to do. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario seem to disagree and to whom are they accountable?