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Daily Maverick
11-07-2025
- Business
- Daily Maverick
How to foster a culture of integrity in SA's public sector
As we observe Africa Anti-Corruption Day on Friday, 11 July — marking 22 years since the adoption of the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption — it is hard not to feel despondent about the state of corruption on the continent. In particular, African public procurement systems are affected by an insidious form of corruption that wastes resources, stymies development, hampers governments' ability to provide basic services, increases inequality, entrenches poverty and supports other forms of lawlessness and criminality. Public sector corruption manifests in public procurement because of the high volume of transactions, the multiplicity of regulations and procedures, the amount of discretion available to procurement officials, the asymmetry of information, the large sums of money at stake, and a private sector overly reliant on government support. Procurement frameworks in Africa are governed by laws inspired by the work of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law and institutions like the World Bank. These frameworks are admittedly complex, bureaucratic and not well-suited to the capacity constraints in many African countries. However, the corruption within our procurement systems cannot solely be attributed to our institutional challenges or capacity issues. In South Africa, we have laws and policies aimed at fostering integrity and accountability in the public sector, prohibiting and criminalising corruption, and protecting whistleblowers who report it. Laws on public financial management and procurement also contain several prescripts for managing public funds and the procurement process. Notwithstanding the robustness of these laws and policies, they cannot address the corruption challenges we face. The implementation and enforcement of our laws are sadly lacking, despite the best efforts of agencies like the Special Investigating Unit, the National Prosecuting Authority and the Office of the Public Protector. This raises important considerations that are often overlooked in efforts to prevent and address corruption: people, culture and payment. Laws and policies are only as good as their implementation — even the most robustly drafted laws and well-intentioned policies will fail if poorly implemented or deliberately undermined. If officials fail to implement our procurement and anti-corruption laws, we should focus on their character and ethics. Three key issues From an anti-corruption perspective, three key issues deserve attention. First, how can we hire people whose innate character supports our goals of a 'capable, ethical and developmental state'? Still related to people: How do we address the failures of leadership in the public sector? Second, how do we change the public sector culture so that integrity and good governance become the norm? Third, corruption procurement scandals often involve large sums of money, suggesting that unethical contractors can get paid, even when they fail to meet contractual obligations. Private sector participants who abuse the procurement system are often more interested in getting paid than in delivering on public contracts. The contract only serves as the means of access to public funds. This raises the issue of tightening payment controls in the public sector. The unending struggles with procurement corruption suggest that we need to devote serious attention to recruitment practices and performance management in the public sector. South Africa is due for an overhaul of the public sector recruitment process. This is especially important for the roles that control public spending and enforce our laws. To provide a few examples of recent failings, in June this year, several senior police officials were arrested for their involvement in procurement corruption. In March, procurement officials were arrested in connection with fraud and corruption at Eskom, and there were convictions related to personal protective equipment procurement fraud in KwaZulu-Natal. These arrests and convictions point to shortcomings in the character of some officials, as well as potential inadequacies in the recruitment and promotion process for public servants — both of which compromise law enforcement and ethical procurement. The recruitment (and promotion) of unethical persons in the public service is extremely dangerous. It breeds systemic corruption — a situation where law enforcement and accountability measures are themselves compromised, making it impossible to address corruption in a meaningful way. It also creates impunity and disorder, which will spread into every area of public and private life. Some African countries have already descended into the chaos brought about by systemic corruption, where life has become intolerable for most citizens. Competence, character and integrity In re-examining public sector recruitment processes, we can draw on private sector approaches to ensure officials at all levels are the kind of people who can secure the future that South Africans so desperately yearn for. Public recruitment practices must focus on competence, character and integrity. Generally, well-educated employees can be trained in the specifics of their roles, but unethical people cannot be trained to be ethical. We must adopt recruitment strategies that regard integrity as a core skill set for employment in the public sector. In the private sector, recruiters look for candidates with the right qualifications and technical skills, and who are also a good fit in terms of culture, ethics and values. In South Africa, tests for ethics and values are often a part of recruitment or promotion to senior public sector roles. This is, however, counterintuitive as new hires should also possess the desired character. Although there is no fail-safe means of determining the depth of a person's integrity, private sector recruiters use different methods to assess a candidate's values. These include strategic screening, interviews, references, proper background checks, behavioural tests, ethical dilemma scenarios, assessments such as the 'Honesty-Humility' scale (from the Hexaco personality model, which measures sincerity, fairness, greed avoidance and modesty), and ethics or situational judgment tests. Persons with high scores on the Honesty-Humility scale avoid manipulating others for personal gain, resist the temptation to break rules, and show little interest in lavish wealth. Conversely, persons with low scores are inclined to break rules for personal profit, are motivated by material gain and driven by a strong sense of self-importance. These types of assessments should be mandatory in public sector recruitment. Addressing the failure of ethical leadership will require not only improvement in recruitment and culture changes, but also the willingness and moral fortitude of political parties to look inward, transform their internal cultures and appoint individuals with a proven track record of competence and integrity to high-level positions. An anti-corruption campaign cannot be successful when it is led by unethical people. Culture change Fostering a culture of integrity in the public sector requires culture change — the most difficult, yet most transformative process an organisation can undertake. Since the public sector consists of thousands of devolved units, culture change must occur within these units, guided by an overarching national objective. Culture change requires a clear articulation of the desired culture, a diagnosis of the existing culture, a process to align leadership behaviours with the desired culture, and steps to embed it in organisational processes such as recruitment, onboarding, performance management, reward, recognition and values-based decision-making. If we can change the culture in the public sector, we can change the outcomes. We also need to tighten the controls around public contract payments to reduce losses from fraudulent invoices, payments for non-delivery and payments lacking adequate documentation. After 25 years of researching and teaching public procurement and anti-corruption law, I am convinced that while legal frameworks are necessary, it is the level of attention and intention given to people and culture in the public sector that will most effectively address our corruption challenges. South Africa is filled with brilliant, decent, morally courageous and ethical people. It is time those people were given a fair chance at public service. DM
eNCA
11-07-2025
- Politics
- eNCA
African Anti-Corruption Day comes as SA grapples crime eroding public trust
JOHANNESBURG - Today marks African Anti-Corruption Day, a moment for the continent to reflect on its progress and renew its commitment to ending one of its most stubborn challenges: corruption. Commemorated every year on 11 July the day marks the adoption of the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (AUCPCC) in 2003. Now in its twenty second year, the convention continues to serve as a continental framework to strengthen accountability and integrity in public service. Some factors include: As the continent recognises progress in the fight against corruption. South Africa grapples with this crime as one of its most urgent problems. It erodes public trust, widens inequality, and weakens democratic institutions. Even the South African Police Service is allegedly tainted. While the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago has noted this he says they still continue their fight against corruption. But they can not do this alone, he says "We have created anti-corruption forums within different entities including the health sector and the local government but we need the whole society approac. Because when we work together we are in a position to fight corruption," he said. Meanwhile reacting to allegations of corruption within the SAPS corruption watch attorney Nkululeko Conco says corruption filters down to the station level but also the involvement of gangs with police especially in the Western Cape.
