I think we should learn to think with integrity instead of being a drone

Today, I went for an interview at one of the Big Fours. I talked to one of the high level personnel. As usual, we went through some boring conversation. At the end of the interview, I shot this question about the role and the responsibility of an Audit firm in preparing the financial statement of a public listed company. I was eager to ask this question because I have been reading some basic investing books and, in these books, they stress that the financial statement is one of the most important documents that shows the financial status of the company at one point. My interviewer gave an interesting explanation of the audit firm role to me and he was giving a shot that I was having too much time to think about these issues. I have a feel that this certain personnel is not really taking this problem that seriously. In his explanation, he was saying that there are a lot of complications that someone will have to take into account for the many accounting scandals in this world and we will have to rely on the good people that has good business integrity and business social responsibility to keep the business world to work properly and efficiently. I can't help to think this is more of a general observation but it does not provide a solution to what we can do to stop and to make it harder for these evil doers from making a profit by making a fool out of their shareholders. Before we talk about the solution, we should first look at the potential cons of the discovery of a corrupted company in a country. If a company was to be reported and proved to be committing an accounting fraud, it will create a huge backlash to the economy of a country by affecting the confidence of potential investors into the country's economy. In order to solve this problem, we should really have tougher rules and regulations for the listing companies because they are basically owned by the public. Currently, the punishment is not really fitting the white collar crimes in Malaysia. I believe the system should be overhauled partially. Different important watchdog organizations should really keep a close eye on the activity of the listed companies.