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In providing a framework for guiding public servants to carry out proper behaviour, both aspirational and disciplinary means are used. Values fall under aspirational means, as they are to encourage public servants to the ideals of the public service and irreproachable behaviour. Codes of conduct can be either aspirational or disciplinary or both in the sense that they outline desireable states of behaviour or spell out the consequences of not complying with certain rules. Legal restrictions -- through the criminal code, specific anti-corruption statutes, or illicit enrichment laws -- definitely fall under disciplinary means. They are a warning to public servants that if they do not comply with existing laws, penalties will enforce legal provisions. Values and Standards For the purposes of the study, institutional values were assigned the working definition of "principles upheld by organisations to guide public servants in carrying out their official duties, which may or may not reflect societal values which themselves may be traditional, changing or newly introduced." Standards of conduct were deemed to be "required criteria for actual actions of public servants with attached penalties when breached." Values and standards can be articulated public service-wide, at the individual ministry or agency level, and by professions represented in the public service such as legal, accounting, medical, etc. All ten countries reported having public service-wide statements of core values, and all but Cameroon indicated having public service-wide statements of standards. All countries, except Namibia, also reported the existence of statements of values at the ministry level. (However, Namibia reported the existence of standards at the ministry level.) Again, all countries except Cameroon indicated the presence of statements of standards at the individual ministry level. At the profession level, nine countries, again with the exception of Namibia, indicated the presence of statements of values. And only Namibia and Cameroon did not indicate the existence of statements of standards by profession. Of the six countries that identified values, many of them are similar. They have been grouped accordingly and identified by country to give a sense of the prevalent values in the sample countries. |
The guiding framework for conduct in the public service is only the starting point for influencing the behaviour of public servants. A management framework -- through the designation of a specific agency to oversee overall ethics and anti-corruption policies (beyond only coordinating the dissemination of values and standards), good public service working conditions with fair human resources policies and adequate remuneration, and clearly defined administrative policies and procedures -- also needs to be in place to implement the guiding framework. In Chapter 6, the management of an overall national integrity strategy, human resources management, and disclosure provisions will be examined to compare the state of management of conduct in the public services of study countries. National Integrity Strategy Management A national integrity strategy generally spells out how a country intends to concretely reduce corruption and enhance integrity in its society. This is a broader effort to address all aspects of fighting corruption and raising integrity than merely focusing on inculcating good values in and warning about standards to be observed to public servants. Six countries indicated the existence of a national integrity strategy while eight said that an agency had been designated to co-ordinate and manage the implementation of ethics and/or anti-corruption policies. Moreover, six countries affirmed that the agencies reported on the state of ethics or corruption in the public service. Fewer than half the countries were able to indicate whether they co-ordinated ethics and anti-corruption measures through risk assessment to steer policy development, analysing systemic failures in disciplinary cases or providing strategic guidance or checklists. Those countries that indicated the presence of coordinating measures include Gabon, Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda. Cameroon mentioned another strategy of raising national awareness against corruption. In terms of assessing the effectiveness of the national strategy, very few countries indicated that this was carried out. Of those that did, Uganda indicated the presence of reports to Parliament every six months, Nigeria mentioned annual reports but noted that these were irregular and often did not address the issue, and Gabon mentioned performance evaluation of the strategy. |
The final function of the ethics infrastructure is to facilitate the control or the enforcement of standards of behaviour in the public service. Once core values and standards to be observed have been communicated and management processes have been instituted to oversee the conduct of public servants, then control measures need to be put into place and implemented to show that a government is serious about upholding integrity in the public service. Without enforcement, the guiding elements such as statements of values, political campaigns for a clean government, and training sessions for public servants become meaningless. Equally, a management framework to promote sound public service working conditions, clear administrative policies and procedures, and ethics co-ordinating bodies also remain ineffective without swift and fair action in cases of ethics violations and corruption. Even though there may be stringent statutory or administrative requirements for reporting wrongdoing, most people are reluctant to do so. The many reasons for this comprise not knowing of this obligation, not wishing to upset the status quo, not wanting to appear disloyal to the organisation and management, rejection and marginalisation by colleagues, and a fear of reprisal. However, when looking at the measures available, it would seem that what is in place is still inadequate to encourage public servants to come forward with reports of corruption and ethical violations. |