Dr John Ntshaupe Molepo
Pretoria - Often when people think of ethics, they think of rules for distinguishing between right and wrong.
In most cases, this is how ethics are defined: a set of norms for conduct that distinguishes acceptable and unacceptable conduct.
The recent events at the City of Tshwane have once again prompted the public to ponder about the ethical behaviour of the political leadership in the metro, and given the manner in which the whole debacle around Dr Murunwa Makwarela was handled by both his party and council, we ought to ask ourselves: What is wrong with us as a society? Are we so ethically bankrupt that we have lost our conscience?
Do ethics have a barometer?
Corruption Watch stressed that for the past decade, South Africa’s government has failed in its efforts to make real inroads in the uprooting of corruption. When acts of corruption are committed by those entrusted with public office, this weakens the systems.
A Corruption Watch report points out that in 2022, more than 3 200 whistle-blowers across South Africa reported allegations of corruption and other forms of misconduct, bringing the total number of complaints received since 2012 to 36 224.
The allegation that there is a leaked report from the auditor-general who suggested that the municipality was manipulating its financial statements to hide irregularities, which may amount to R10 billion, paints a vivid picture of the state of our municipalities and the shambles that is their finances.
This is precisely the case with Pastor Makwarela, who held the City of Tshwane to ransom for a week through a soap opera of lies and misinformation. Dr Makwarela crassly attempted to defraud the public by brandishing a “fake” insolvency rehabilitation certificate in public, which was found to be fraudulent by the chief registrar in the office of the chief justice. The clergyman knew from the onset that he was insolvent and that he shouldn’t accept nomination. However, he went on to accept the mayoral chain.
Where was this man’s conscience?
Is he morally deficient?
I deliberately chose not to expend time on dealing with whether Cope, the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC), or the City had vetted Dr Makwarela or not. I only have limited space to deal with the ethical issues at hand.
In my view, political leaders need to transcend these basic ethical questions. Creating the greatest value for society should guide their decisions. Moving beyond a set of simple ethical rules (“act in good faith”), this perspective is rooted in the work of earlier philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, who argues that the morality of an action is determined based on the reasons for our actions.
Kant applied what he termed a “categorical imperative” that acts as a determinant for moral validity: “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time that it should become a universal law.”
Meaning that leaders must act in a manner that their actions are commensurate with what is expected in a particular situation.
Efforts by the government on issues of ethics can be noticed with the recent mechanisms the National School of Government has introduced. Among those is a course on ethics for those in leadership.
The SA Local Government Association has also churned out training programmes to address the issue of ethics for councillors.
However, this doesn’t seem to be reducing incidents of ethical lapses in municipalities. Perhaps we should move to address the foundation of this matter.
Institutions of higher learning should be playing a role in shaping the moral compass of society.
This could be in a form of character formation and also embedding ethics in their curriculum.
Among many other things, the past decade has seen the extreme erosion of public service, governance, and leadership ethics among politicians.
* Dr Molepo is a senior lecturer at the University of Mpumalanga and the Executive Director of the SA Association of Public Administration and Management. He writes in his personal capacity.
** * The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.
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