The Public Companies Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) is essentially a non-profit based corporation that oversees and audits the financial aspects of public companies. Established by Congress, the corporation’s primary role is to ensure the credibility of all stock-related transactions so as to protect the interests of all investors (Addison-Hewitt, 2006) . The creation of the PCAOB was triggered by an urgent need to safeguard public investments. This came in the wake of major players in the corporate world experiencing colossal financial losses that would in turn, threaten global financial security. Given these facts, a proper mitigation approach would be to redesign the accountability process by introducing a new watchdog. However, the new player PCAOB, cannot be considered to have done much to protect investors. Instead, the introduction of the PCAOB into the equation could be equated to a game of peek-a-boo. In just the same way as the board that had previously been put in charge of auditors, the corporation has failed to eliminate accounting scandals that directly affect stock prices.
It is the responsibility of the auditor's board to oversee the activities of listed public companies. The PCAOB, on the other hand, are the watchdogs of the auditors even though in actual sense, the body seems to only have been established to scare auditors into pretending to be doing their jobs right, tricking the investor community in the process. When the watchdog stops backing, the auditors as well turn a blind eye to the illegal activities that brokers and agents involve themselves protect their interests at the expense of those ones of the investor that would have been involved. On realization of misappropriations, it then becomes the responsibility of the PCAOB to seek legal punishment against the culprits that would have been involved, a process that has tended to take years mostly without the credible prosecution of perpetrators (Wegman, 2008, p. 75) . The fact that PCAOB has failed to prevent the investors from accounting scandals before they become damaging to investors, as well as, Its inability to bring the perpetrators to face justice is proof enough that the commission was just for show, and not definite fight for justice in the accountability of investments management hence the name, peek-a-boo.
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References
Addison-Hewitt. (2006). SARBANES-OXLEY . Retrieved July 26, 2017, from A Guide To The Sarbanes-Oxley Act: http://www.soxlaw.com/index.htm
Wegman, J. (2008). Government regulation of accountants: the PCAOB enforcement process. Journal of Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues, 11(1) , 74-76.
