A Comparative Study on the Nature of Public Sector Ethics and the Issue of Civil Service Corruption: The Cases of Teachers and Police in Cameroon
Stanley Enongene, Ebah (2009)
2009
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The results to date of civil service ethics and professionalism in Cameroon has been daunting and quite frustrating, thereby leading to the eroding of the prestige and image that the civil servants and the public service have been able to secure over the years in the eyes of the Cameroonian public and the international community. However despite intense efforts by the government and other international donor agencies restore ethics and good governance within the public sector; these efforts have often gone through without any meaningful impact as aspects of corruption, graft, embezzlement and looting have become the order of the day, thereby creating a vicious cycle of corruption .By adopting a comparative approach, between two groups of civil servants with an almost similar but different status in the civil service classification, the study seeks an understanding of the prevalence of unethical behaviours within the civil service despite the existence of precise codes of conducts for the said civil servants.
By adopting Institutionalism and Path dependency as an analytical framework, the study uses these as a theoretical thrust on the relationship between the government and the civil servants, as well as the environment in which they operate with regards to public sector ethics and corruption. By doing so, it examines the public service system and its position on public service values from the pre reform period of SAP to the post reform period. In an effort to grapple with the study, the research uses qualitative data as its main source of material to ground the work, and to as well show that corruption, rather than being thought to be culture specific issue, its a culture universal issue.
The complexity and wide spread corruption that is eating up the Cameroon civil service system, that has led to the falling ethical standards at the work place ,upheld by almost every civil servant, can at best be said to be the result of the system of governance operating in the country and the form of politics that is operating. Patronage, nepotism and tribalism are the order of the day and have in turn replaced the good governance principles of justice, fairness, equality and honesty among others. Finally, while the study recounts in greater detail the causes of corruption and disregard for ethical values in the public sector, it ends up with some recommendations and policies that have been applied and shown to have produced good results in other countries, with a similar case as Cameroon to be taken into consideration so as ensure good governance and democracy which are a vital mechanism for a smooth civil service functioning.
By adopting Institutionalism and Path dependency as an analytical framework, the study uses these as a theoretical thrust on the relationship between the government and the civil servants, as well as the environment in which they operate with regards to public sector ethics and corruption. By doing so, it examines the public service system and its position on public service values from the pre reform period of SAP to the post reform period. In an effort to grapple with the study, the research uses qualitative data as its main source of material to ground the work, and to as well show that corruption, rather than being thought to be culture specific issue, its a culture universal issue.
The complexity and wide spread corruption that is eating up the Cameroon civil service system, that has led to the falling ethical standards at the work place ,upheld by almost every civil servant, can at best be said to be the result of the system of governance operating in the country and the form of politics that is operating. Patronage, nepotism and tribalism are the order of the day and have in turn replaced the good governance principles of justice, fairness, equality and honesty among others. Finally, while the study recounts in greater detail the causes of corruption and disregard for ethical values in the public sector, it ends up with some recommendations and policies that have been applied and shown to have produced good results in other countries, with a similar case as Cameroon to be taken into consideration so as ensure good governance and democracy which are a vital mechanism for a smooth civil service functioning.