Ian Narev and CBA – What About Accountability?

“In explaining why no executives had been let go, the CBA boss noted that even with strong standards there was little an executive could do to completely eradicate the risk of a rogue operator.” Daniel Palmer, Australian March 7th.

‘Rogue operators’ – really! Does the CBA’s violations really come down to rogues? What happened to taking a responsible perspective, confronting that the executives of a business are the primary source of the culture of that organisation, especially the CEO. A responsible perspective would look at how the executives were at the source of the CBA’s transgression, not blame ‘other’ factors. This is why there are layers upon layers of management in organisations such as the CBA, to manage people – these managers’ report to other managers, who eventually report to the Executives and this is how the executives should be on top of what is happening in their organisation. Someone had to know about this.

For the ‘financial advice scandal’ and ‘allegations it fraudulently impaired loans’ to happen, somewhere, management did not do its job in either inspecting and/or setting the right ethical mindset for the people that work for them. Why were they not doing this? This is the question that the CBA executives and board should be looking at.

David Turner, CBA’s Chair said “We think we will be the ethical bank that others look up to for honesty, transparency, decency, good management, openness. That’s exactly where we are trying to go.” Stuart Condie AAP. The language of this statement is revealing to me – “We think we will be….where we are trying to go.” Lacks conviction, don’t you think? How about We will be and we will go. Then they get upset when a banking royal commission is proposed.

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