Mr.

Sajjad Jaffer, CEO of ASSAD associates is a senior Auditor who signs of on prepared tax returns for major firms in Tanzania; his firm has been established for at least twenty years. He has an employee force of twenty which include accountants who are tasked to gather information and prepare financial statements for his final signature. This job requires very little margin of error, which can cause drastic repercussions not only for the client but for the firm as well. Mr. Jaffer recalls an incident whereby he had already signed off on financial statements and eventually tax returns and had sent them for signature from his client, out of the blue the employee who was responsible for the input of the data went to his senior manager notifying him of an error that he may have committed. Upon investigation it was found that the error had occurred and this would have caused a negative impact on the taxes for the client as the employee had overstated the revenues which in turn had overstated the operating income causing the client to pay more taxes that he wasnt responsible for. In Tanzania taxes on operating income is prepaid based on estimation annually and if there are any discrepancies either positive or negative then additional taxes are due or refunds are issued. Mr. Jaffer was informed of this grave error and he immediately contacted his client and went to visit him. He informed the client that an error had occurred and it was imperative that an amendment should take effect. After this incident, Mr. Jaffer took several steps to ensure that any error of such magnitude should not occur as it can have negative consequences for the firm. To uphold accounting ethics in reporting and to avoid errors, some of the steps that were implemented included reprimanding the employee who made the error despite the fact it was a self reporting error. Secondly a very effective internal control was put in place which included senior auditors to verify the information that was entered by accountants, so that if any error occurs, it can be rectified immediately.

This is probably not the first time that an error has occurred, and I am certain that errors may have gone unnoticed or employees may have been scared self reporting it. Even though numerous internal controls may be in place, when one is dealing with an accounting firm and the magnitude of numbers involved, errors are bound to occur and the only way to avoid repercussions is for employees to self report the errors. In my opinion the action by Mr. Jaffer to reprimand the employee who reported the error was probably not a wise move, because this would discourage the employee in the future to report any errors. As noted, in this industry it is very important that errors are constantly reported regardless of its magnitude, but if the fear of reprehension or dismissal is inculcated within the frame mind of the employees such errors will always go unnoticed even if the best of internal controls are in place. Hence job satisfaction would be at its lowest at ASSAD Associates hindering job performance, firm growth, employee retention and a negative image of the firm would be portrayed by the employees. In order to create job satisfaction, reprimanding employees for honesty is of the past instead creating job satisfaction is really the key answer. In order to do that, the firm needs to look at ways to give employees perks such as free gym membership, bonus incentives and maybe have opportunity to make partnership. This will allow employees and management to have cordial relation when it comes to discrepancies in particularly identifying mistakes and errors. Another facet of ensuring that job satisfaction remains high in the firm is to ensure that employees and future perspective employees are not emotionally charged which can adversely affect their work environment. In order to avoid such a situation from occurring I recommend the firm to administer EQ tests, so that employees who are emotionally challenged may not hinder job performance or bring any of their emotional situations into the work environment.