Should this former Deloitte accountant become a doctor?

One of the key attributes of finance and business people should be ethical behaviour. Note that I say “should be” as not everyone seems to agree with this approach.

Former Deloitte UK employee Nahied Kabir seems to have a slightly different view of what is acceptable in terms of ethical behavior.

Here’s a quick multiple choice question for you to see how ethical you are compared to Mr. Kabir.

Question – You’re struggling a bit with your professional exams and your employer’s policy is that if you don’t pass your exam within 2 attempts you’ll lose your job. Do you:

a) Focus your efforts on passing your exams. Or,

b) Focus your efforts on forging two doctor’s certificate.

Now, in my opinion (and hopefully in your opinion as well!) the correct answer is (b) (a).

Alas for former Deloitte employee Mr. Kabir he chose option (b).

In summary, Mr. Kabir failed an exam twice and at a meeting to discuss terminating his employment contract with Deloitte he produced a forged doctor’s note.

Deloitte let him sit the exam again and he passed this time. He then had a further 3 exams to sit and you guessed it he failed all 3.

At the next meeting to discuss things with Deloitte he claimed that he failed due to the ill health of his mother. He then produced a second forged doctor’s note from another doctor claiming his mother was suffering from ill health.

Proving that as well as being a pretty rubbish accountant he was also pretty bad at forging letters, the forged letter from the second doctor was exactly the same as the forged letter from the first doctor with the exception of only 4 words!

It’s probably no surprise to you that Mr. Kabir is now no longer working with Deloitte and the accounting body he was sitting his exams with (ICAEW) have published their report on the disciplinary action they took against him.

Again, it’s probably no surprise that he was “declared unfit to become a member of ICAEW”.

There’s no news yet whether Mr. Kabir is planning a successful career as a bank note forger…