Effectiveness of the Public Service Code of Ethics in Controlling Corrupt Behaviour in The Public Service: Opinion from the Grassroots at Toangoma Ward-Temeke Municipal Council

Abstract

Ethical values are core elements towards efficiency and effectiveness of the public service. Tanzania adopted the public service code of ethics as a behaviour guiding tool to public servants against maladministration practices. The study intended to measure the effectiveness of the public service ethics code as a tool to promote good governance for effective delivery of public service. The study qualitatively analysed the status of how an ethics code may control corruption in the public service. The findings from Toangoma Ward in a study conducted from June to September, 2017 revealed that the principles of a public ethos are not adhered to due to the ecology of public sector that includes, under pay, weak monitoring and evaluation of performance and the culture of nepotism in the public sector. Therefore, these weaknesses have made the public service ethos to be a myth and a failure in the management and provision of social services in Tanzania. The persistence of corruption in the service sectors has continued to ruin and damage the quality of services. The study recommends that the public sector is to be overhauled in terms of promoting best practices such as good pay, meritocracy in recruitment and promotions to higher managerial positions.

Keywords

Ethics public service Tanzania corruption integrity values

Introduction

An ethics code in the public service is a central tool that is intended to promote good behaviour and route out maladministrative behaviour in the delivery of public service. Ethics according to Richard (1979) simply means what is right and wrong, what is acceptable or unacceptable and is intertwined with the value system of people. The universalism and particularism debate on ethical conduct is inconclusive. However, the general accepted behaviour standards lead to establishment of a code of ethics which guides the interactions of the society’s members. The codes prescribe and benchmark for what is wrong and right for the public sector employees. The essence of the code is to guide the behaviour of the public servants who are trusted to serve the majority of their fellow citizens. Codes of ethics are central to effective governance in the public service. Public servants deliver essential services to citizens, commission infrastructure, regulate economic activity and engage in diplomacy with foreign countries – to name just a few tasks. This puts a premium on understanding how to manage the public servants through codes of ethics (Bauhr, 2017). Maladministration practices in the public sector are vented out by the ethos entrenched in the constitutions and public service codes. According to Gildenhuys (1991) poor, dishonest management of public affairs and corruption (immoral acts) are among the most important manifestations of unethical conduct.

In the context of public governance, the codes of ethics are in the taxonomy of governance benchmarks to achieve efficiency and effectiveness. In this regard, codes are the most important statements of civic expectations (De Bruijn and Dicke, 2006). In the public governance discourses, ethics guide the relationship between the principals (citizens) and agents (bureaucrats). The public service ethos exacerbates the delivery of quality services to the citizenry as the codes entrench the self-policing culture to the public officials (Ake, 1993). The codes of ethics, when applied to public servants become the ultimate terms of reference for professionalism in the public service. Invariably, the codes escalate administrative efficiency and promote good governance principles (Nkyabonaki, 2008).

Moreover, the tools to promote public integrity in the public sector include the codes of ethics. Codes of conduct for civil servants have therefore come into increasing use from the year 2000 in Africa’s public governance. This was a product of generic reforms of the late 1990s. It is important, however, to anticipate here the essential point that codes of conduct are useless if they are not founded on strong internal promotion mechanisms. Such a foundation takes time to form, and also needs a deliberate and proactive programme. With regard to fostering public ethics and preventing corruption there is an extended discussion that:

If a [public servant] neglects his duties, works for his own profit or accepts bribes, it will cause a rapid decay of public morals. People will cheat one another…take advantage of the poor, and there will be no justice for anyone. (Asian Development Bank, 2005)

Also, according to Thompson (2018) commitment to fostering a public ethics of accountability through socio-political actions aimed at discarding the mechanisms of leniency that make corruption tolerable is a means of ending the maladministrative inefficiencies. This strategy may require, for instance, to fight the system of incentives (that underpins, for example, the practice of smoothing administrative processes through the payment of bribes), which may obfuscate the wrongness of corruption where specific instances of this phenomenon happen not to have any immediate and material negative consequences but, in fact, are perceived as an instrument to cope with social injustices and inefficiencies. This may be possible through a simplification of public administration processes, which may make it less crucial to rely on the personal favours of a crooked official, for example, in order to obtain documents in a reasonable time.

The moral decadence question is more intense in developing countries such as Tanzania. At independence, Tanzania inherited the Prevention of Corruption Ordinance among the key legal instruments to prevent the abuse of power and misconduct by public servants. The civil service size was small. By the late 1960s there was a big expansion of public service as a result of the nationalization of the private companies. Integrity and professionalism began to decline steadily. Many public servants betrayed the trust bestowed upon them by the nation. They started using their offices for personal/private economic gain, and hence there was spread of corruption. In 1971 the government repealed and replaced the Prevention of Corruption Ordinance with the Prevention of Corruption Act. The latter improved the provisions of the repealed law and also made it a crime for the public officers to be found with property suspected to have been corruptly acquired. Sentences for offenders were also enhanced (Hossea, 2003).

The inadequate accountability, unethical administrative behaviour and corrupt practices have become so pervasive, and even institutionalized norms of behaviour in the public sector, to the extent that one may conveniently speak of a crisis of ethics in Tanzanian public service (Nkyabonaki, 2019).

The investigations by Mallya (2005) illustrate the trend of corruption in Tanzania’s public service as follows:

The most minor State official demands ‘incentives’ for any service, sometimes he demands ‘gasoline’ from clients: ‘do you think the car runs without gas?’ In this civil service where everyone is a king of his office, one must do everything to make sure that the user understands that ‘the goat grazes where it’s tied,’ ‘how do you think I’m going to do it?’ They are skilled at demanding that all their ‘goats’ be ‘fed’ in order to delay or advance the consideration of any case.

The government of the United Republic of Tanzania adopted a Code of Public Service Ethics to address such malaise of public governance. It is an acceptable fact that where a code of ethics is issued, it is indicative that the community serviced by that code lacks acceptable conduct or desired standards of behaviour (SIGMA, 2014). The people in that community have not observed fully, or not at all, the rules and regulations that guide their behaviour. The society therefore, has low morals and low ethical values. This leads to all kind of righteousness dwindling and people fail to act upon their obligations (Roll, 2014).

Tanzania’s code of ethics intends to promote acceptable behaviour at the workplaces through principles of accountability, confidentiality (information control), conflict of interest, diligence and competence, fairness against abuse of power, impartiality, integrity and honesty (avoiding corruption), loyalty and public property control (United Republic of Tanzania, 2005). The adherence to the public service code of ethics is considered to work as stoppers of maladministration and corruption behaviour in the public sector.

However, a report by the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau, 2017) shows the share of perceived corruption levels in the public sector to be as: proportion of citizens indicating to have been asked to pay a bribe in the past one year 56.5%; proportion of citizens indicating to have paid a bribe in the past one year 36.4%; proportion of citizens perceiving that senior central government leaders/officials engage in corruption 78.1%; proportion of citizens of the view that public officials are stealing or misappropriating public funds entrusted to them 83.9%; and proportion of citizens of the view that it is helpful or essential to have a relative or friend to be recruited to a public service job 78.1% (Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau, 2017).

Moreover, both gland and petty corruption have different dimensions in Tanzanian public service. According to the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau report 2017, the interviewed citizens revealed the forms of corruption they were succumbed to pay as: money (90.9%); in-kind (0.8%); and sex (6.7%). The survey findings depict a serious problem of moral decadence in the public sector despite of the presence of the code of ethics instrument to control the behaviour of public servants. The maladministration behaviour of the 1990s in Tanzania’s public service which Mukandala (1990) puts forward such as patronage, nepotism, embezzlement of funds, and personalismo on the advent of the public service code of ethics 2005 are still present. It is against this background that the study sought to assess the effectiveness of the public service code of ethics in Tanzania’s public service. The next part of the paper discusses the statement of the problem, objectives of the study and research questions.

Statement of the problem

A code of ethics is sought to instill the value of self-policing and invariably address the malaise of public governance such as corruption (Gildenhuys, 1991). Tanzania adopted the public service code of ethics to restore integrity and promote acceptable behaviour in the public sector which seem to have been vented out from post-independence to 1990s in the public service (Mukandala, 1990). The code of public service ethics in Tanzania embeds principles of accountability and integrity which focus on the establishment of best practices in the provision of public service (United Republic of Tanzania, 2005). However, since the adoption of the Tanzania public service ethics code in 2005, corruption scandals have been rampant in the public sector (African Peer Review Mechanism, 2010; Nkyabonaki, 2018). The minimum survey report has also revealed that corruption in forms of cash was at 90.9%, in-kind 0.8% and sex 6.7% in 2017 (Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau, 2017). Furthermore, Tanzania is ranked the 99th most corrupt nation out of 175 countries, according to the 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index reported by Transparency International. The puzzle is on the rampancy of corruption behaviours amidst the institutionalized public service code of ethics. Hence, the effectiveness of the ethics code to reduce corruption in the public sector is assessed.

Objectives of the study

The main objective

The study assessed the effectiveness of the public service code of ethics in controlling corrupt behaviour in the public service.

The specific objectives

(i) To identify the levels of awareness on the code of public service ethics among the citizens at the grassroots.

(ii) To examine the perceived contribution of the public service ethics code to reduce corruption

(iii) To examine the effectiveness of the enforcement mechanisms of the public service code of ethics

Research questions

(i) What are the levels of awareness on the principles of the public service code of ethics?

(ii) How is the contribution of the public service code of ethics perceived in controlling corruption in the public service?

(iii) What are the factors that influence the effectiveness of the public service ethics code?

Literature review

Ethics codes benchmark the standards of right and wrong, and prescribe what humans ought to do. Ethics shape people and the institutions where they co-exist. If the ethics principles are well installed the society will mutually adhere to them and achieve good living. Ethics calls for individual self-policing (Ross, 1954).

The question of ethics is one that is linked with the history of mankind. Ethics deals with the character, conduct and morals of human beings. It deals with good or bad, right or wrong behaviour; it evaluates conduct against some absolute criteria and puts negative or positive values on it (Richard, 1979). Also, Guy (1995) agrees with Richard because he views ethics as the study of moral judgements that is, right and wrong conduct. The code of conduct, is like an inner eye that enables people to see the rightness or wrongness of their actions (Guy, 1995). According to Price (2006) the basis of the evaluation of human behaviour is to be found in a system of values. Ethical values and integrity as a basic value as well as the rule of law are key elements of every democratic society.

Nevertheless, the public sector or the state is the government with all its ministries, departments, services, central/provincial/local administrations, parastatal businesses and other institutions. The public sector is composed of two core elements: at the political level, policies are formulated and the (major) decisions are made; and at the administrative level there is the public sector administration, which is in charge of implementing these policies and decisions (Asian Development Bank, 2005). Good governance in public sector management cannot be divorced from morality of the entire state machinery. The two systems are mutually inclusive and nourish each other. The point of departure rests on governance being intrinsically linked to how the state is managed in terms of ensuring a good quality of life for all citizens, and how authority and power are exercised to achieve this goal.

Public officials in their daily execution of their functions and management of public funding, dispose of discretionary competencies. This is what reveals the need for a system to manage the public servants’ behaviour through codes of conduct. According to Meyer-Sahling et al. (2018) ‘Most civil servants are dissatisfied with their salaries and find them insufficient to maintain their households. Yet, only a minority would find it easy to find a better-paid job outside the public sector’. This shows the inbuilt limitation to achieve the effective implementation of the ethics values in the public sector in developing countries. These values must not only protect the citizens against arbitrary use of this public power, but also the public authority itself against any improper use of this power by its public officials. The public officials themselves must be protected against any abuse or diversion of law or authority on behalf of the public authority or its official bodies (Hondeghem, 1998).

According to Mafunisa (2000) the ethics of public service is (should be) based on five basic virtues: fairness; transparency; responsibility; efficiency; and no conflict of interest. There are, however, other principles in operation, and public servants face several dilemmas, for instance when the bureaucrats’ private ethics collide with their professional public work ethics or organizational cultures. The elements as developed by Mafunisa (2000) are the moral questions which seem to be lacking in full or in part in the managing of African development. A state in Africa is labelled as being corrupt and statesmen are termed to be predators of their national resources Kiiza (2002). The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (2000) states that ethical behaviour is essential for an effective and stable political–administrative authority as well as social and economic structures. Corruption can disturb economic competition and endanger free trade and stability on which the free market economy is based. The moral–ethical culture which prevails in the public sector is dependent on the values of society. A society which does not, or is not allowed to express moral protest in public can cause political office-bearers to have a low sense of responsibility and integrity (Esterhuyse, 1989). Moral standards in public service are severely affected by the selfish desires of individual public servants who abuse their public positions at the expense of community service and moral order, which ought to hold the community together. According to a study by Meyer-Sahling et al. (2018), nepotism in civil service management reduces work motivation, public sector commitment, performance and job satisfaction. The meritocratic values of public administration in developing countries are revealed by Meyer-Sahling et al. (2018) to be inadequately in existence and what dominates the realm of public service are nepotism, politicization and low pay. These elements do highly affect the performance of public administration and the behaviour of employees. Corrupt behaviour in the public sector in developing countries is scaled up due to those factors of nepotism and low pay. Hence, for Tanzania to curb unethical behaviour in the public service it must eradicate these variables with high intensity and vigour.

Moreover, the critical matter in Africa is the existence of two publics. According to Ekeh (1975) there are two publics in Africa, that is, primordial public and civic public. The presence of two publics has also created a situation of state employees to be in ‘two different worlds’ of ethics in the case of the management of public services (Roll, 2014). A number of researchers have been looking at the moral stress facing civil servants who are living in two ‘different worlds’. In particular, the theories of neo-patrimonial rule stress the conflict between the moral logics and expectations of clientelist rule: the patronage system of political patron–client relationships; informal procedures embedded in the state institutions; and the professional ethics of individual politicians and civil servants. One of the best-known studies is by Patrick and Jean-Pascal (1999), which portrays state administrations in neo-patrimonial African states as serving an entirely different logic to the Western state model. It portrays neo-patrimonialism as a system that works to maintain the power and the benefits of the elite class at the expense of the public interest (Baguma, 1992). Jones (2012) also argues that personal connection-based civil service management decisions have adverse effects on the attitudes and behaviour of civil servants. This is congruent with the concern that the permeation of personal networks in developing country civil services often equates to nepotism and personal favouritism – rather than referrals to better inform meritocratic personnel decisions. This implies that employees with ‘god fatherism’ in the public service have a potential of misbehaving and going without any penalty (Oliveros and Schuster, 2017). This therefore, cannot lead to the effective execution of the code of ethics.

Corrupt behaviour in the public service involves ‘corrupters or suppliers’ and the ‘corrupted’. These suppliers are the general public, or – in other words – the non-state society.

The counterpart to the corrupt officials is any non-governmental and non-public individual, corporate and organizational, domestic and external (Kolstad, 2008). The supply side focus has been taken even further. For instance, the influence of firms (private businesses, for instance major foreign companies and multinationals) on the state, and especially how they exert influence on and collude with public officials to extract advantages, has been called ‘state capture’. Some firms in developing economies have been able to shape the rules of the game to their own advantage, at considerable social cost (Aldridge and Stoker, 2002). In such a ‘capture economy’, public officials and politicians privately sell a range of rent-generating advantages to individual firms. In extreme cases, powerful companies shape the legal rules and policies by providing illicit, non-transparent private gains to public officials and politicians, for instance by ‘buying’ presidential and parliamentary decisions through cash or party financing (OECD, 2018). What they purchase are benefits such as secure property rights, access to resources (concessions), monopolies and preferences, and removal of obstacles such as taxes and environmental, health and security regulations (Hellman, et al. 2000). According to Meyer-Sahling et al. (2018), public service ethics codes have not been efficient particularly in public service environments where politicization and high levels of nepotism as well as low pay to public servants are highly experienced. These researchers emphasize that there are ‘Four civil service management practices which had positive effects in almost all surveyed countries with regard to ethical values and conducts: depoliticization, curbing nepotism, ensuring that performance matters, and paying sufficiently to retain motivated staff’.

The practice of corruption has been evaluated both from consequentialist and deontological perspectives. Some researchers have been using consequentialist reasoning to show that corruption is unethical. For instance, it has been argued that corruption leads to public contracts given to the firm that pays the highest bribes and not the firm that offers the best quality/price ratio (since public officials will choose projects that generate the highest private rents and not the highest social payoff). It has been argued that corruption draws skilled labour out of productive activity and into rent-seeking, further exacerbating inefficiencies in the allocation of resources. It has also been argued that corruption disproportionately affects the poor. In sum, corruption has detrimental consequences and is hence deemed unethical from a consequentialist perspective (Heidenheimer et al., 1989).

Other researchers have provided arguments against corruption from a Kantian perspective. For instance, it has been argued that corruption violates the categorical imperative to ‘act only on maxims which you can will to be universal laws of nature’, because corruption is an attempt to obtain special treatment. It has also been argued that corruption violates the categorical imperative to ‘always treat the humanity in a person as an end, and never as a means only’, because corruption involves deception, and undermines the rational and moral capacity of those involved (Kant, 1964). This demonstrates the strong consensus on the subject of corruption, that corruption is ethically indefensible from the point of view of both consequentialist and deontological theories (Patrick and Jean-Pascal, 1999).

Tanzanian experience

The experience of corruption as portrayed elsewhere in the African countries is also prevalent in Tanzania. The country is endowed with natural resources such as gas, minerals of variant types but the country’s economy is dwindling. At independence, Julius Nyerere, a founding father of the nation declared three malignant enemies to be diseases, ignorance and poverty. In the mid-1970s the country’s economy boomed and the levels of illiteracy declined due to the first government ethical commitments. The ethos of managing public resources was by then based on the Arusha Declaration with an Ujamaa or socialist ideology (Nyerere, 1977). Individual richness was counted as evil as the approach of Nyerere was a communitarian development. According to most political analysts, problems of corruption sparked off tremendously in the 1990s with the liberalization policies (Nkembo, 2003). Privatization went hand in hand with individual leaders’ self-enrichment and grabbing of public money (Heilman and Ndumbaro, 2002). Corruption has become rampant and as of today the country is stinking with corruption through fake mining contracts and immoral deeds behind the veils of power legitimacy in the elections. In this way of misusing public funds, investment for development cannot be realized. To emphasize the point, the United Nations Development Programme office said that, it is only through the fight against the vices such as corruption that quality, human rights and real development can be attained (United Nations Development Programme, 2013). In Tanzania’s public service since the adoption of the public service code almost in all sectors, unethical behaviour has been constantly reported. Corruption is an obstruction to development; it undermines stability and security and it erodes public trust and confidence. Some pernicious effects of corruption are the lack of quality essential services, the lack of public infrastructures and, above all, poor management of resources, or, more generally, bad governance. The consequences of corruption are borne by the poor. In the health sector for example, numerous forms of misconduct have been reported that include some public servants demanding bribes from patients, alcoholism, lack of commitment, excessive unionism, lack of secrecy, abusive languages and absenteeism despite the existence of the public service code of conduct. According to some study findings, doctors’ absence from work accounts for 70% and being late for work accounts for 72% in the public service ( United Republic of Tanzania, 2004). The Ethics Baseline Survey revealed that the public service code of ethics principles was not adhered to by most employees in the public institutions. Mallya (2005) attempted to discuss the issue of professionalism and governance in Tanzania. According to the findings of his study, 70% of engineering professionals did not mention the code of ethics that guides their conduct in their business. This implies that the knowledge about the code of ethics is generally very limited.

Moreover, according to Nkyabonaki (2008) unethical behaviour in the public service is accelerated by inadequate capability of the public to demand for accountability. This means for the individuals to innately indulge in self-policing requires external pressure. In the Tanzania public service there is not a culture of the general public to engage in public life to demand from the supply side of accountability; however, the debate on mechanisms of addressing corruption in the public service is amplified by public sector reforms in Africa in the 1980s. The introduction of political liberalization since the mid-1980s in most African countries, including Tanzania, has emboldened a budding civil society into demanding greater enforcement of ethical standards and the punishment of violators. There is a growing recognition that unethical practices have contributed to the economic difficulties that the countries face; and the international donor community has been exerting pressure requiring stricter adherence by African countries to good governance and the curtailment of waste and squandering of resources (Kauzya, 2016). According to Osborne and Gaebler (1992), these images make it clear that African public administrations do not distinguish themselves, either through the quality of their services or their relations with their clients, and even less through the moral integrity and efficiency of public officials. For example, Tanzania is still scoring high ranks in terms of corruption indicators. In 2017 Tanzania stood at the 103rd position and in 2018 stood at the position of 99th out of 183 countries surveyed by Transparency International in 2018. Hence, this shows the magnitude of the non-adherence to the public service code to be standing at a high level in the public service.

Furthermore, the public service code of ethics principles is shared across all employees from the time of recruitment and on a daily basis through observing professional ethics. The government employs various mechanisms of informing the general public about what is expected from the political class and the bureaucrats such as use of radio, newspapers and sharing telephone numbers to the public to report on any misconduct. However, the implementation of the public service ethics code has not yielded the expected results of developing a professional public service. Corruption and misconduct have been highly registered almost in all service sectors in the country since the adoption of the code of conduct in 2005 (Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau, 2017). This gap between the existence of the code of ethics and the high prevalence of maladministration behaviours such as embezzlement of public funds and nepotism in the public service sparked the need to assess the effectiveness of Tanzania’s public code of ethics.

Methodology

The study was exploratory research designed to assess the effectiveness of the public service code adopted by the Tanzanian government in 2005. The sampled population of the study was drawn from adult residents of Toangoma Ward. The total number of 349 respondents was randomly reached out of the population of 44,578 (United Republic of Tanzania, 2013). Toangoma Ward was purposively selected as the researcher had previously conducted a study on social accountability at this Ward found in Temeke Municipality. Hence, the researcher wanted to know if the citizens understand the code of ethics in the public service to be having a contribution in retarding the misbehaviour in the public service. Questionnaires were used as the main tool for primary data collection. Data collected were analysed quantitatively using descriptive statistics (Kothari, 2003). Meanwhile, the interviews were also employed to the same respondents in order to probe deeply and find out the underlying factors which have led to the exacerbation of corruption in the public sector amidst the code of ethics in the public service. The rationale for opting for a multi-method data collection strategy in this study was to increase reliability and validity of the findings. The section that follows describes the analysis and presents the discussion of findings.

Analysis and discussion

Respondents’ demographic characteristics

The sampled population produced a number of male and female respondents as indicated on Table 1 below. The key issue examined in this study is that, female respondents were more concerned with the public service ethos. Some female respondents were of the view that unethical conduct deprives women of quality services and in turn results in atrocities against them. Moreover, the literature further suggests that women’s engagement in corruption is more limited compared to men (Appleby, 1952). Therefore, the unethical conduct is gendered from this study finding. The male respondents seemed to be more considerate on corruption in the public service as a systemic question unlike women who considered unethical behaviour to be individually motivated. The question remains unresolved as it is a fact that the public space is highly dominated by men due to the patriarchy system in Tanzanian communities (Nkyabonaki, 2017). Hence, the social systems in the public administration are exacerbated by the male values and thus corruption and non-conformity to public values are associated more with the men than women. The importance of ethical conduct in the public service concerns all the populace regardless of their education levels as indicated on Table 2. The respondents offered an account of views that ethical conduct does not look at the level of education but the moral base of the individuals. The individuals who have attained a post-secondary education during interviews tended to employ the rational choices which face individuals. The argument by these respondents was that:

In Tanzania today, if you have a position and you don’t steal, the same people in your organization by the time you retire or your out for whatsoever reasons, they will be laughing at you…and calling you fallacious as you failed to embezzle the public money given your position in the office.

Table 1.

Respondents’ composition by sex.

	Frequency	%
Male	158	45.3
Female	191	54.7
Total	349	100.0

Source: Field Survey (2017).

Table 2.

Education levels of the respondents.

		Frequency	%
	None	38	10.9
	Primary	73	20.9
	Secondary	57	16.3
	College	63	18.1
	University	109	31.2
	Total	340	97.4
Missing	System	9	2.6
Total		349	100.0

Source: Field Survey (2017).

On the other hand, the respondents holding pre-university educational level were of the opinion that, ‘let individuals use their position for the best of theirs and their families. Who is perfect in Tanzania?’ This verifies a big challenge on the application of the public service ethics code as the demand and supply side of accountability view its breach as a non-issue. Furthermore, this means the unethical behaviour is institutionalized in society. Hence, the anti-unethical efforts should target both the public servants and the citizenry in order to generate an acceptable expected way of life in public governance.

Awareness levels on the public service ethics code

The field evidence has revealed that the public service ethics code is not known by the majority as stipulated on Table 3. This implies that the dos and don’ts prescribed by the code of conduct are inadequately known, a reason which leads to perpetuated corruption in the public service. Moreover, the limited awareness on the code of ethics despite its existence and institutionalization reveals that the implementation strategy of the public service ethics code is in question. The respondents interviewed have had the following to comment:

The public service ethics code is intended for the good course. However, the unethical behaviour are spread wherever and thus diminishing the need of the document. It does not come into sense if the leaders entrusted to safeguard the public resources become looters and preach to the public on ethics. This is the reason why everyone has turned to steal what is nearby him/her provided is a public property. The government officials will steal the public money and an ordinary person will still the road signs to go and sell to industries dealing with steel. The manufacturers will manufacture fake products as they know its unethical society.

Table 3.

Levels of awareness on the public service ethics code.

		Frequency	%
	Very low	20	5.7
	Low	184	52.7
	Very high	102	29.2
	High	41	11.7
	Total	347	99.4
Missing	System	2	.6
Total		349	100.0

Source: Field Survey (2017).

This statement suggests that there is a big challenge of trust between the power-wielders and the citizens. The confusion results in institutionalization of unethical behaviour towards the public sector infrastructure and resources by not only the agents but also by the principals. The views of this study tally with those of Hosea (2014) who argues that the civil society is weak to demand accountability from the duty bearers. The effectiveness of anti-corruption in the public service depends and relies much on the governance infrastructure whereby the civic voice controls the behaviour of the public servants. The Tanzanians at most were affected by the post-independence political socialization which made them to be more aware of the subjects rather than the citizens (Mamdani, 1958). Hence, the culture of not demanding for good governance among the citizens is not by default but by design in the public sector.

The field evidence reveals that among the respondents who said the ethics code of ethics is popular in the public service counted only for 23.5% as indicated on Table 4. This level of perceiving the popularity of the tool leads to the assumptions of policy-makers not being ready to install properly the tool or that the levels of civic competence are low. Both of the assumptions make sense as policy-makers or power-wielders may intentionally exert less pressure on the ethical values in order to avoid the echo effect. The classic study of political participation by Nie and Verba (1972) defines it as those legal activities by private citizens that are more or less directly aimed at influencing the selection of governmental personnel and/or the actions they take. The main concern is in action by citizens aimed at influencing decisions taken mainly by public representatives and officials. Political participation is more associated with representative democracy and indirect participation (Cunill, 1991; Richardson, 1983). It expresses itself in individual and collective actions that include mainly voting, campaigning, contacting, group action and protest all oriented towards influencing the representatives in government, rather than active and direct participation in the process of governance itself. Also, the political culture of most Tanzanians which is deterrence from public life may lead to the populace not bothering to utilize the available tool to control the agents’ behaviour in the public service. This model of participation developed by Cunill (1991) seems to occupy the most part of public life in Tanzania. Hence, it renders the public culture to monitor their leaders and public officials’ behaviour to be limited. Furthermore, it leads to the public service ethics code being dysfunctional in relation to promoting good governance and eliminating maladministration.

Table 4.

Popularity of the public service ethics code among the public.

		Frequency	%
	No	254	72.8
	Yes	82	23.5
	Total	336	96.3
Missing	System	13	3.7
Total		349	100.0

Source: Field Survey (2017).

The contribution of the public service ethics code to curb corruption

The contribution of the public service ethics code to control the behaviour of public servants and the citizens at large is deemed inadequate as indicated on Table 5. The respondents attributed the ecology of public administration in Tanzania to be the cause of the problem. The advanced argument is that the effectiveness of the code cannot be realized due to the corrupt behaviour that persists everywhere. The stereotyping of corruption in the public sector as a normal behaviour makes this code inefficient. The moral authority is not respected as public sector misconduct acts puts the country at a crossroads. One respondent said:

The Magufuli regime has identified itself as a corrupt free regime, but is it true that it’s clean? Why when people ask about their money which the Controller and Auditor general found to be not documented, the government gets over their necks? We the general public would be glad to see the president championing ethics and buying our trust as the guardian of the public service values. It is not enough to preach on ethics but followers want to walk in the footprints of their leaders towards the ethical kingdom.

Table 5.

The contribution of the public service ethics code to ethical governance in the public sector.

		Frequency	%
	No	190	54.4
	Yes	147	42.1
	Total	337	96.6
Missing	System	12	3.4
Total		349	100.0

Source: Field Survey (2017).

The field findings revealed the contribution of the code of ethics towards establishment of impartiality, diligence on duty, rule of law and confidentiality to remain far to reach and realize in the public service. This is due to the responses which depict that 54.4% said the code has no significant contribution to the governance ethics in the public service. The attributing reasons would include impartiality in the recruitment process and unfairness in the dealings in the public sector. For instance, the issue of nepotism in the public sector remains highly perceived not only in the service delivery circles but also in recruitment of public employees. The corruption in recruitment despite being centralized under the Public Service Recruitment Secretariat is still viewed to be engulfed in avenues of corruption. This is not healthy for the stake of a nation which pushes hard towards an industrialization agenda. Meritocracy and fairness in recruitment are crucial to bring on board the public servants with capabilities of transforming the performance culture and thus resulting in economic development. In Tanzania, despite still scoring high on corruption indexes, the Magufulication¹ effect in the public service seems to have led to a reduced level of corruption. The Transparency International Report (2018) shows that corruption in the public service is declining, though steadily and insignificantly. The following Table 6 shows the score of Tanzania in the corruption perception report from 2012–2018.

Table 6.

The score of Tanzania in the corruption perception report from 2012–2018.

Year	Rank	Out of surveyed countries
2012	102	178
2013	111	183
2014	119	183
2015	117	183
2016	116	183
2017	103	183
2018	99	183

Source: Transparency International Report (2018).

The country ranking on corruption has seemed to go down from 2015 since when the fifth phase government entered into power. However, the challenge remains to be the fragility of the institutions in controlling public misbehaviour as, for example, the code of ethics tool is not known adequately to the citizens. Hence, this leads to a hasty conclusion that corruption in the public service is there to remain as far as the demand side of accountability remains relatively weak. Furthermore, the contribution of the public service code of ethics to ethical governance of a country is limited, and thus, may lead to limited realization of national development.

The field findings showed that majority of the respondents are not aware of the sanctions associated with the breach of the public service code of ethics as indicated on Table 7. The 78.8% of the respondents who said no to the question which assessed their awareness on the sanctions reveal that most citizens are not aware how they should be governed. The findings show how passive the citizenry are towards the public service ethics tool. The sanctions for non-conformity are not known; this means even the citizens who face the consequences of the unethical behaviour have no idea on the due process of seeking justice from the disciplining authorities. There is a perceived despair of the public on leadership ability to execute diciplinary measures to reported misconduct on government officials. For example, one respondent said that:

I do not bother to make follow up to any officer even if they misbehave, they have a culture of labelling the complainants and this endangers one’s life, let the responsible authorities find it out themselves.

Table 7.

Sanctions for breach of public service ethics code.

		Frequency	%
	No	254	78.8
	Yes	82	17.5
	Total	336	96.3
Missing	System	13	3.7
Total		349	100.0

Source: Field Survey (2017).

This shows a culture of the principles fearing the agents. When, this is so, the public service ethics code cannot reduce corruption in the public service. The code of ethics is a base for punitive measures against the misconduct either by the principals or agents in the public space. The inadequacy of awareness among the citizens over the sanctions on the breach of the ethics suggests the code to be dysfunctional. Hence, achieving ethics in the public service remains a puzzle and the exacerbation of maladministration behaviour becomes the way of life in the public sector.

Incentive levels and promotion of ethics

The field data show that the respondents were of the view that the incentive levels in the public sector are low as presented on Table 8. The implication on the agents and the citizenry at large to live up to ethics values remain a puzzle. The service users feel a need to grease an engine so that it can move and be serviced in a quick manner. One of the respondents shared the experience by saying the following:

the public servants need rescue as they are underpaid and reveal a high level of despair…I went to a dispensary and a nurse was walking slowly to attend my patient, when I asked her why so, she replied, my car has no fuel. Have you heard of an increment on our incomes? So why should you expect me to care for you while am not cared for?

Table 8.

Current incentive levels and promotion of ethics in the public sector.

		Frequency	%
	Very low	20	5.7
	Low	184	52.7
	Very high	102	29.2
	High	41	11.7
	Total	347	99.4
Missing	System	2	.6
Total		349	100.0

Source: Field Survey (2017).

This anecdotal evidence from the respondents reveals how the demotivated public servants could hardly serve diligently and impartially. The organizational language culture shows how the public service ethics code is not adhered to. This implies a failure of the ethics code to promote accountability and quality service delivery in the public sector.

According to Mutahaba (2005) poor pay is a very fundamental factor towards erosion of morality in service provision. Mutahaba (2005) discusses the consequences of the decline in real pay and weakening of the incentive regime on service delivery. He maintains that depletion of scarce motivational capital in the public service gives rise to: ‘demotivation of civil servants at all levels; reduced work efforts, declining levels in performance; weakening of accountability and control mechanisms and reduced commitment to the public service’. In addition to the reduced work effort, low and declining pay may reduce good will, increase ill-will and motivation to engage in counterproductive behaviour not supporting increased production, service delivery, good fiscal management and tolerance for ‘deviant behaviour’ including time theft and corruption (Anderson, 1976). The views are also supported by Meyer-Sahling and Mikkelsen (2016) who argue that, higher pay satisfaction and sufficiency are associated with greater job satisfaction and intent to remain in the public sector – but not (directly) greater work motivation and performance. Higher pay – through its effect on pay satisfaction – however can drive motivation and performance indirectly by discouraging departures of more motivated and performing staff. This puts a premium on paying enough to retain motivated and performing staff who are ethical and live by high human integrity formation (Kimeu, 2014). In Tanzania, whereby the pay levels are low, the possibility of realizing ethical conduct in the public service remains far to be realized. Therefore, the code of ethics cannot be effective if the status of motivating the service providers is inadequate in the public sector.

The findings of this study reveal the implementation of the public service code of ethics to be facing challenges on monitoring and evaluation by the responsible organs as presented on Table 9. According to the field findings, the officers in the public service behave how they behave as they have no fear about the consequences of their behaviour. The argument advanced by the respondents is that there is a weak monitoring of the individual employee behaviour thus leading to constant breach of ethics. The respondents suggested that the bosses are too far away to see what their subordinates commit or omit. Moreover, another respondent commented that there seems to be collusion between the subordinate and the boss. They cited an example of traffic police officers who demand a bribe from drivers to be saying, ‘the amount is little, my boss also waits for the share’. This implies that the corrupt behaviour depicted by the traffic officers is systemic. Corruption starts from the top and pervades the system to the bottom. The enforcing of ethical conduct in the public sector remains in a dilemma. Hence, the ethics code of service in the public sector becomes a failed project as the ecology of maladministration is pervasive.

Table 9.

Adequacy levels of monitoring ethics in the public sector services delivery.

How do you rate the monitoring of the ethical conduct in the public sector?	Frequency	%
Very adequate	80	22.9
Adequate	50	14.3
Inadequate	95	27.2
Very inadequate	124	35.5
Total	349	100.0

Source: Field Survey (2017).

Conclusions

The study has examined the effectiveness of the public service code of ethics and observed that a code of ethics is installed, and it is of high importance to control and monitor the behaviour of principals and agents in the public service. However, the code is highly ineffective due to the ecology of public sector management in Tanzania, whereby the de-motivating environment to the public servants, limited engagement of the citizenry in governance processes, collusion between the citizens and the service providers, moral hazard of the agents and exerted fear to the principals lead to the self-policing in the public sector to be inadequate. The major assumption was that if the ethics enforcement is implemented in a favourable public service environment, then, unethical conduct such as self-absenting from duty, favouritism, and seeking for gifts or money from clients would significantly decline leading to efficient service delivery. However, eventually, misconduct in forms of embezzling public money, nepotism, corruption and favouritism become persistent. The persistence of maladministration behaviour in the public sector amidst the presence of the public service ethics code renders the conclusion that the ethics code tool is a failed project in the public sector.

The study has further revealed that despite the government efforts to have the code of ethics to guide behaviour of providers and consumers, there are some basic constraints such as poor remuneration and patronage that have made the adherence to the ethical conduct by the service providers quite difficult. As a result, the soliciting of gifts which naturally leads to double standards in serving customers has become a common practice among service providers. Hence, the situation depicts the ethics project in the public sector to be hard to achieve in Tanzania. Therefore, this is further evidence that the ethics code tool in the Tanzanian public sector remains a failed project.

Recommendations

Political will and commitment to adhere to public service codes of conduct should be enhanced through bureaucratic ethics or professional trainings. Also, a national ethics framework and empowerment of communities’ capacity to reject unethical behaviour of power-wielders should be promoted.

Furthermore, the public service code of ethics must be made to constitute a holistic approach for enhancement of the accountability of public officials and improvement of service delivery to citizens through a dedicated commitment and co-ordination from all agencies in government, to ensure that mechanisms to promote ethical conduct and accountability are not hindered by systemic and legislative weaknesses.

Footnotes

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Jason Nkyabonaki

Notes

Author biography

Jason Nkyabonaki is a PhD holder in Public Administration. He researches and publishes much on areas of governance and corruption in the public service in Tanzania.

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