DON’T be too eager to put money above integrity, says chartered accountant Georgia Silvera Finnikin, noting that success is not about immediate profit or instant money or earning a big salary; it’s about integrity.

Speaking recently to students at Northern Caribbean University (NCU) about demonstrating personal and professional integrity, Silvera Finnikin remarked that some people suddenly develop “amnesia” after taking out a student loan and it’s time to repay. She defined integrity as being able to “do what you mean and mean what you say”.

“Do what you say you are going to do, and when you say you are going to do it,” she urged.

Claiming that the lack of integrity has affected people worldwide, Silvera Finnikin pointed to the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, a federal law that established sweeping auditing and financial regulations for public companies in the United States. The legislation seeks to help protect shareholders, employees and the public from accounting errors and fraudulent financial practices.

Silvera Finnikin also suggested that the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009 was caused by the lack of integrity in the mortgage industry in the United States, which destabilised global financial markets. In December 2007 the US economy entered a recession.

The chartered accountant and taxation consultant was representing the Adventist-laymen’s Services and Industries (ASI) group during a general assembly at NCU Mandeville campus on January 18.

“I would have to admit that based on my experience, honesty and integrity are really rare. What do you say?” Silvera Finnikin remarked in her presentation.

Several NCU students responded to her question.

“Honesty and integrity: I don’t think it’s something Jamaican university students or people in general practise sometimes. Lying is more in their daily lives, which is why I think it’s rare,” Akelia Brown, a fourth-year accounting student, responded.

“When we look at the
Bible we realise that what God demands of us is often contrary to the nature of man. The
Bible says thou shall not lie. And so, we find in society that people are quick to be dishonest for their own gain,” reasoned Tyrese Edmond, third-year religion and theology student.

The presentation on personal and professional integrity preceded the main event — a public lecture by Professor Emeritus Errol Miller, sponsored by ASI Jamaica. The lecture topic was ‘The role of the Seventh-day Adventist church in Jamaican society: Brief reflection on the colonial years,’ 1893 -1962.