Public Officials in South Africa Must Embrace The Spirit Of Service
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23 January 2009: Public Officials in South Africa Must Embrace The Spirit Of Service
Perhaps things really do have to get a little worse before they get better: worse in the sense that public sector corruption has taken its toll on public trust and better in that political leaders come to realize their achievements are short-lived if citizens do not trust their institutions and elected leaders. This possibly explains why the ANC has re-opened the debate on corruption in the public sector before a crucial national election in South Africa. And it is a good thing too, since the need for a renewed focus on ethics in public life is vital to any maturing democracy.
Global concerns about ethical conduct in public life reflect the need to build trust between government officials, public services and citizens. Serving the public interest is fundamental to public office. Public officials are always required to assess whether they are in a situation where their private interests might improperly influence the way they perform their job. And public trust is often said to be the cornerstone of good governance.
Certain conditions provide an enabling environment for conflicts of interest situations and corruption to transpire. The conflation of party and state provides numerous opportunities for elected and unelected officials to take advantage of their public positions for personal benefit. Black economic empowerment (BEE), designed to promote black ownership of the economy, whilst relevant and necessary, has also been criticized for its unintended consequences. These include nepotism, cronyism and the creation of a small but wealthy politically connected empowerment elite. The ruling ANC stands accused by opposition parties, but also by their tripartite alliance partners, of allowing members to use the party as a means to business success.
In addition, despite their public positions, many elected and non-elected officials possess private business interests in the form of shares, directorships and partnerships. In a 2006 report, the Auditor-General found significant overlap between public life and private business interests with six out of ten civil servants holding private business interests in South Africa. These situations create a huge potential for conflicts of interest situations to arise. Consider the potential for public officials to award state tenders and procurement deals to private companies that they themselves or their fellow employees hold financial and other interests in. Less publicized but most concerning are growing indications that positions of power at the local government level, like a seat on a council, are being used for personal gain. In some cases, councilors stand accused of awarding contracts to local companies so as to benefit friends, family or employees at their municipality.
Apart from the erosion of public trust, an equally disturbing consequence of abusing public office relates to service delivery. In a country that remains one of the poorest and most unequal societies in the world, it is crucial that the state prioritizes the efficient delivery of basic social services. However, when public officials are distracted from their jobs and the greater public interest, or corrupted by their private interests, resources are diverted away from service delivery, with the poorest and most marginalized citizens in our society bearing the consequences.
South Africa’s politicians unwittingly contribute to their own demise and that of their institutions and the public good when they refuse to regulate their own behaviour. Without strong motivation for self-regulation there is a greater need to tighten regulations. And in this regard, there is reason to be cheerful if one looks to the recent commitments made towards cleaning up public office.
The Public Service Commission has responded by drafting new regulations that will deal with bribes and kickbacks in the public service to ensure that tendering processes become more transparent. Legislation to regulate the conflicts of interest of judges was passed last year and should soon be implemented. And in a revealing moment, the ANC President, Jacob Zuma, recently placed corruption at centre stage at the ANC 2009 manifesto launch in the Eastern Cape when he promised to run a graft-free government and root out corruption within party and government. He circuitously questioned the party’s deployment practice, which places loyal members in key public sector positions, stating rather that public servants should be in the correct positions and that we should not deploy our friends. The ruling party’s manifesto is somewhat thin on the fight against corruption but does promise new measures to prevent procurement and tendering corruption.
But are all these pre-election promises sufficient? These policies may help to convince an increasingly skeptical electorate, but widening the scope of regulations and introducing harsher penalties for breaches is only part of the solution towards reducing conflicts of interest and corruption in government. Regulations and penalties are important because they act as deterrents by ‘naming and shaming’ those involved in corrupt activities and importantly, they help to guide the behaviour of public officials to make the right choices in the first instance so as to avoid potential conflict of interest situations.
However, a less tangible factor crucial to realizing cleaner government involves self-regulation. The success of our democratic institutions in meeting their obligations to citizens depends largely on a dedicated and incorruptible team of public officials who embrace the spirit of public service. This involves placing the public interest before narrow self-interests, regulating one’s behaviour and removing oneself from conflict of interest situations as they arise. The values that inform the spirit of public service are those of integrity, honesty and selflessness.
South Africa’s codes of conduct that establish and inform ethics in public life focus largely on compliance to a set of rules and limitations, such as the disclosure of financial interests. Yet, this ‘top-down’ compliance-based approach places little emphasis on the over-arching values that ought to guide the behaviour of people in public positions. If public officials do not own these values they come to view conflicts of interest regulations, like asset disclosure, as an imposition of their individual freedoms, or simply as cumbersome bureaucratic necessities of public life. Instead, a values-based approach can play an important role in the moral life of institutions by laying the foundations for ethical conduct and informing members of the rationale for such behaviour.
Conflicts of interest situations that are insufficiently dealt with by codes of conduct or regulations will continue to emerge in public life, such as the revolving door between government and business, the connections between ANC members and business, and tenders for public contracts. As they do, without consensus as to what constitutes principled and ethical behaviour, there is little to guide public officials. However, when a core set of values is established, these questions are more easily addressed, and a suitable pattern of behaviour becomes entrenched.
Collette Schulz-Herzenberg, Senior Researcher, Conflicts of Interest Project, Corruption and Governance Programme, ISS Cape Town
