Financial Knowledge Awareness, a social cause
Why is it so that accounting, economics, finance and stock market awareness and knowledge is considered to be somewhat irrelevant and quite complicated, in our part of the world? We live in a modern world, run by power, authority, but the important question is, what makes you powerful, what makes a country powerful? What makes a company powerful? Is it the amount of people backing you up, or the arsenal a nation holds so very dearly? Or is it the mere global financial and economic power a country, an individual, a company hold? The world of today, watches wars pass us by, not fought by alms, but by the inventory of financial and economic worth, control and movement.
Today we understand the concept of necessity of financial knowledge, and how it has become a social cause? Quite ironic, isn’t it? The time where people thought having minimal knowledge regarding taxes, accounting, audits, and financial instruments is harmless has passed us by a long time ago. Regardless of anyone’s political views upon any countries’ politics, one cannot deny the colossal increase in financial crime, corruption, money laundering, embezzling and basic tax frauds. Why is it so? Maybe because our lack of financial knowledge, economic awareness has led us to have a blind eye upon every corruption possible? Would it be possible for people to commit these crimes, had the society, the people, ranging from government officers, politicians, teachers, doctors, engineers, lawyers, armed forces, laborers, taxi drivers, security guards, entrepreneurs had the basic understanding of taxes, financial and economic situation of the country, the laws protecting the rights of people and expressing the possible violations that arebe done when attempting for financial crimes?
Countries like Pakistan, were subject to numerous funds, money generation from their exports, tax money, government revenue, creating a capable arsenal of finance that Pakistan could now easily be considered as one the most developed countries, but what happened? Our blind eye to how much Pakistan, as a country is producing in terms of products and services, which is called in economics Gross Domestic Product (GDP), our blind eye to constant Pakistani budgets, our blind eye to Pakistani Stock Market, our blind eye to funds provided to government officials and bodies for development of Pakistan, were all extorted through power, position, rank and most importantly our lack of financial knowledge. Ready and capable enough to file our taxes but not aware and curious enough to seek where is our tax money going? Our financial crisis, is it because of the constant corruption in our history? Or is it because we let them commit corruption so easily, when all we had to was have the basic knowledge, regarding Accounting, economics and financial knowledge to understand how a country operates, and how it could be misused by those in power.
Those who have studied Accounting or Business may know, but at the start of our management courses, we are told that Accounting is the heart of business, without it, whether you are in it for profit making or for a social cause, whether you are in an automobile industry, or managing a general store, you can’t operate your business without Accounting, and this goes for countries as well. All the successful business owners have tracks to their expenses, and the situation where they are incurred, and how revenue is being generated, and how to maximize it, and if a business is not successful, the business owner and everyone blame the owner for its failure. Aren’t we Pakistanis? Don’t we have the power? Shouldn’t we be the ones to keep in check of our country’s economic and development projects? Shouldn’t we have the financial knowledge and awareness of how a country works? Had we as a nation, consistently taught each other financial knowledge and importance of economics, would we be in a financial crisis? Wouldn’t we have stopped the countless and billions of Rupees corruption? Doesn’t our blind eye from the past also play a part in the financial and economic crisis that we are facing?
Money might have become the arsenal of today, but even the guns and weapons needed someone to know how to pull the trigger, and just like that our minds will always be the controlling force of the money arsenal. If we as a nation possess a uniformity in financial knowledge, economic conditions, financial budgets, government projects and their funds and budgets, our arsenal would also be stacked with the biggest competitive nations of the world.
What is accounting? Accounting and financial knowledge is not mathematics, and definitely not addition or subtraction. Breaking the shackles of the norms we have set, accounting is not the calculation of 2+2, but accounting and financial knowledge gives you the power of reasoning and power of reliability and validity to assess how and where did the 2 come from and whether it is in the right calculation or not. Accounting and financial knowledge is knowing the laws governing these violations, knowing how to check in the route path of the flow of money of the country as well as of an individual, it is to protect our rights, as a society, from corruption, extortion, embezzlement, it is to make sure the hard-earned tax money, is used on the people of Pakistan, and not on the families of the rich, and this is one of the biggest social, financial problems we face, and if this is not a social cause, then I don’t know what is, and if this not an alarming time for us as a nation, then I don’t know what is.
