Ordinarily, Local Government are complex work environments
where leaders are confronted with all kinds of ethical conflicts yet, as the
Australian Local Government Code of ethics asserts, not a single guideline can
effectively solve this.
Today, several guidelines have been instituted by
associations, local governments themselves to deal with ethical dilemmas of
local government management as it relates with media, budgets or as it
researches or is researched and also as it governs its members. I want to focus
on code of ethics governing member behavior in local government management.
Several ethical guidelines where reviewed for this post
and these included the principles advanced by the Local Government Managers
Australia (LGMA); the International City/County Management Association-ICMA
(2008) code of ethics; United Kingdom’s (UK’s) Department for Communities and
Local Government consultation paper on codes of conduct for local authority
members and employees and many others.
The
LGMA is the leading
professional association representing managers and aspiring managers in local
government throughout Australia and Asia-Pacific. It was founded in
October 1936 by Raymond West and, since that time, has continued to expand its
charter and membership services and now has around 2,500 members.
According to available literature on
the LGMA website, their main business is to “promote excellence through the
advancement of local government management” (Local Government Managers Association-National
Office, 2012) .
The ICMA on the other hand is no different. Founded in 1914, this association
that now supports about 9000 ‘cities, town and county experts’ works to “create excellence in local governance by developing and
fostering professional management to build sustainable communities that improve
people’s lives worldwide” (International City/County Management Association , 2012) .
The following guidelines identified from both the ICMA Code of
Ethics (2008) and the LGMA principles are considered potentially useful in
facilitating organisation change in local government management here in Uganda.
Secondly, their adaptation and or implementation in Uganda would mean more
people benefiting from social services. Starting with the ICMA Code of Ethics
that provides the foundation of local government today since 1924 when it was first
adopted by the founding members; code eleven “Handle all
matters of personnel on the basis of merit so that fairness and impartiality
govern a member's decisions, pertaining to appointments, pay adjustments,
promotions, and discipline” and code twelve
“Seek no favor; believe that personal aggrandizement or profit secured by
confidential information or by misuse of public time is dishonest”. Let me
discuss these two first.
Code eleven, means two things in the
Ugandan case, where the chief administrative officers (CAO) who are the CEOs of
all local governments, will not discriminate in their selection, recruitment,
deployment of human resources on the basis of sex, age, tribe or other social
status of individuals seeking employment in local governments across the
country. Code eleven also means that not only will equal opportunity exist in
recruitment and deployment but that the best and capable staffs fill the
positions of service provision at that critical level. Decentralization of
governance in Uganda was in many cases misconstrued to mean creating employment
for the ‘sons of the soil’ and many individuals got on to positions not because
they were the most capable but often because they happened to be locals of the
area. This has been done at the expense of quality service delivery.
If code twelve is implemented by
local governments in Uganda, it would mean: women and children are able to walk
into health centers and receive free government services which are normally supposed
to be free but because officials have negated this particular principle, they
then ask for a reward for an action government would have normally paid them to
do already. It also means that communities will not have to bribe officials for
a borehole to be constructed in their neighborhood but that allocation of such
a borehole would be on the basis of a well researched evidence of need for
water in such a community. Code twelve also means that members of local
government or the councilors will not use their position to influence to
solicit for personal benefits from vendors or other entities supplying goods
and services to the local governments.
The next two principles from the
LGMA are related to the two above: Principle A.6 ‘Objectivity
and independence’ -
Members must be objective in undertaking their professional
duties. Objectivity is a state of mind which imposes on an individual the
obligation to be impartial, intellectually honest, and free of conflicts of
interest. There are two aspects of objectivity and independence; these are the
judgment which comes from being mentally independent and the freedom from
personal relationships which avoid impairing or appearing to impair the ability
of the member to exercise objectivity and independence. Safeguarding professional
objectivity and independence is a matter of integrity.
The last code of ethics considered for this post
is code number A.2 Honesty, propriety and integrity -
Members
must act with honesty, propriety and integrity in the pursuit of their professional
duties. Honesty includes acting with sincerity and not lying, cheating or
stealing. Propriety is to behave correctly as befits the duties of a member’s
professional responsibilities and role. Integrity refers not only to knowing what
[the right thing to do is] but having the moral strength and courage to act on
one's convictions and on principle rather than expediency.
The
two are particularly helpful in the Ugandan case where politics at all level of
government, including local government, introduced the notion of tokenism. This
paradigm of tokenism not only reduces community members from citizens to
clients but equally robs communities of full right and power to demand
accountability from their leaders in local governments.
I
would personally embody these last two ethical principles and I would, given
chance, introduce them as part of organisation change. I note, however that,
there are still some civil servants who have always sought to remain objective,
independent, polite, humble, just, and honest. The frustrations with trying to
be this type of person is in the fact the social norms of those around them are
not the same as theirs. Changing the social norms around them in the form of
organisation change would be the ideal.
Code
eleven highlighted above would however prove challenging to implement in the
Ugandan typical rural setting. There are local governments so remotely located
with no amenities like electricity, water and entertainment. In some western districts
of Uganda for instance, even though job adverts are published as widely as
possible, no one applies to go because of the fore mentioned. Chief executives
of such districts and their elected leaders end up head hunting for ‘born of
the area’ or ‘sons/daughters of the soil’; challenging the issues of merit,
objectivity and integrity of local governments.
Acting
on conviction and principle is difficult where certain policies do not
recognise those individual values. For instance, at my place of work, the
organisation car does not carry non-staffs and where that has to happen,
approval must be sought and obtained well in advance and a waiver form signed
before such as person boards the vehicle. Here is a typical situation: you come
across a mother in labour with no means of transport to the nearest health
centre which is five kilometres away and your heart tells you to help; what a
dilemma would this be? Does one follow their heart or stick to the rules?
At
this moment, I think ethics is cannot be successfully practiced singly, one
requires a change and commitment to it involving the whole group.
Bibliography
International City/County Management Association .
(2012, May 5). Who we are. Retrieved from ICMA:
http://icma.org/en/icma/about/organization_overview/who_we_are
Local Government Managers Association-National
Office. (2012, May 6). Code of Ethics: Part A - Fundamental Principles .
Retrieved from Local Government Managers Association:
http://www.lgma.org.au/default/ethics_1
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