Greed is primarily responsible for the current global financial meltdown, said US economic expert Dr. Joseph Wayne Brockbank speaking at the inauguration of the three-day Human Resources Forum in Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI), here on Saturday. Dr. Brockbank, Clinical Professor of Business & Director of the Center for Strategic HR Leadership at Michigan University, is an expert on the scientific bases of global human resources. The forum was also attended by Dr. Abdul Wahid Al-Humaid, Deputy Minister of Labor on behalf of Dr. Ghazi Al-Gosaibi, Minister of Labor. In his lecture, Dr. Brockbank offered a brief explanation of what was happening to the world's economy. “I've been watching pretty closely the global economic situation and I'm not surprised by what happened,” the economist said. The Enron saga, he said, was a precursor to recent events. “The problem of Enron started with people being greedy. Because they followed the Enron system that had no morality connected to it,” said Dr. Brockbank. Enron Creditors Recovery Corporation (formerly Enron Corporation) was an energy company based in Houston, Texas. Before its bankruptcy in late 2001, Enron was one of the world's leading electricity, natural gas, pulp and paper, and communications companies, with claimed revenues of $111 billion in 2000. At the end of 2001 it was revealed that its reported financial condition was sustained substantially by institutionalized, systematic, and creatively planned accounting fraud. Enron has since become a popular symbol of willful corporate fraud and corruption. Most companies are following the Enron pattern. “Banks were ready to give people loans for houses and cars that they cannot afford. They were having more credit cards than they could afford,” he said. The good news, Brockbank said, is that in Saudi Arabia there's never been a better time to be in HR (human resources). “Saudi Arabia joining the WTO came with several mandates to diversify the economy. With that diversification you ensure nationalization of jobs, but if you're going to speed up job nationalization in a more diverse economy it means you have to start developing your people much more quickly and powerfully than ever before,” he said. The forum is meant to find solutions for the nationalization in the private sector and to help companies find more jobs, said Saleh Ali Al-Turki, JCCI Chairman. “The importance of this forum comes from the need of the partnership between the Ministry of Labor and Jeddah Chamber to crown King Abdullah's call for cooperation between all sectors to build the nation,” said Al-Turki. To fight unemployment and create new jobs is not the only responsibility of the Ministry of Labor, he said. The private sector must shoulder this responsibility too, he said. Dr. Al-Humaid, Deputy Minister of Labor, asserted that the ministry was willing to contact all the Chambers in the Kingdom with the aim of creating a joint nationalization policy and supporting the private sector. __
