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The last two weeks have seen a flurry of activity to mark Integrity Day.
I
was in Sarawak last week and was privileged to see for myself how one
man’s passion for ethical public behaviour has succeeded in putting
integrity at the very centre of everything at the Sarawak Economic
Development Corporation (SEDC). The man in question is Datuk Talib Zulpilip, its hands-on chairman.
Years
before the Integrity Institute was born, the Sarawak Economic
Development Corporation had succeeded in meshing integrity into its
business strategy and work culture.
First
launched in 1996 by the remarkable man of enormous personal honor and
integrity, the late Datuk Taha Ariffin, when he was the deputy state
secretary, the SEDC has since celebrated Integrity Day each year almost
without a break.
SEDC’s Integrity Day is
not your usual hollow ritual lacking in substance but a celebration to
renew personal commitment to high standards of ethical behavior in the
public interest.
The upsurge of interest
in integrity and ethics in our national life is not without a good
reason. People all over the world have realised
that human progress is unlikely to be sustainable without all of us
giving due attention to universal human values – values that transcend
religious, cultural and political boundaries.
There
is no difference in the ethical standards expected and demanded of the
political leadership, the bureaucratic elite running a government
department or a top corporate executive managing a public-listed
enterprise.
Indeed, their duties ought
to be characterized by an ethical obligation to exercise the power
entrusted to them with the utmost care so as to benefit those to whom
the have a responsibility.
In other
words, their decisions must be motivated solely by considerations of
public interest and their actions have to be subjected to public
scrutiny at all times.
After all, their
power is but entrusted power, held in trust, and not intended to
benefit them personally or their relatives and cronies. This best sums
up the tradition of public service, in the public interest.
Ethics, not corruption, must therefore be institutionalised. Unethical public behavior compromises values and leads to all kinds of distortions and inequalities.
Politicians
have to put public interest where it belongs, at the core of their
political existence, if they are to justify their role in today’s
globalised world. They are under a moral obligation to adopt high
ethical standards consistent with the expectations of the public at
large.
An important underlying principle
governing the conduct of elected politicians is that of trusteeship
which is tantamount to the concept of stewardship. This important
principle of public duty appears to be not understood at all.
As
we have seen, corruption thrives whenever institutions and the systems
that support them have been weakened and are no longer capable of
performing their constitutional, legislative or administrative
watch-dog functions.
Whether you are a
state assemblywoman or a member of parliament, you must ensure that the
institutions, established under the Constitutions to protect citisens
and their rights, retain their independence – by ensuring that the
doctrine of principle of the separation of powers, as provided under
our democratic parliamentary systems, remains inviolate.
Our
parliamentary system, already under great pressure, cannot be effective
if the leadership is actively allowed or encouraged to weaken it to a
point where it becomes nothing more than a ‘rubber stamp’. Once this happens, democracy, our preferred system, is put at very considerable risk.
Equally
under threat are the mechanism of checks and balances that are so
essential for the proper functioning and development of democracy
itself.
The final blow to democratic
values is struck when the parliament that is established to protect and
defend the rights of the rich and poor alike allows its freedom to act
in the public interest to be hijacked by those with their own agenda.
The
role of ethics in the context we are discussing is to encourage
integrity and promote high standards of public behavior, the sort of
behavior that rejects corruption totally. Ethical public behavior will
help to increase transparency and accountability. That, in essence, is
what public duty is largely about.
One
of the most worrying problems we face today, both in business and
government, is the speed with which corruption has spilled over into
our national life. When religious and moral values are set aside,
corruption is invariably accepted as a way of life, and tolerated as a
business necessity.
It is generally
agreed that many of our social problems today are due to the seriously
declining standards of ethical behavior not only on the part of public
servants but also the community as a whole.
This
is a national problem that contributes to the undesirable consequences,
such as corruption, criminal breach of trust involving public servants
and members of the corporate and professional classes; a far cry from
the old days when “My word is my bond†was a bandage of honor.
Politicians,
in particular, need to remind themselves that in seeking and occupying
public office, they are party to an unwritten or spoken social contract
that is implicit in its injunction to serve their constituents
diligently, honestly and with integrity so that their well-being may be
advanced and protected.
Voters have
every right to expect their state and federal representatives to keep
their side of the bargain by discharging their duties honestly.
By: Tunku Abdul Aziz bin Tunku Ibrahim
Note: The writer is a former special adviser to the United Nations secretary –general on ethics. He can be contacted at
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Taken from:
New Sunday Times
16/12/2007 |
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