2.9 Moral Principles And Professionalism In The Public Service

2.9 Moral Principles and Professionalism

Mafunisa (2001:335) states that moral principles are rules or standards governing the moral conduct of employees in an institution. According to Mafunisa, moral principles deals with values relating to human conduct, with respect to rightness or wrongness of particular actions and to the goodness or badness of the motives and ends of such actions. Rightness refers to what ought to be or what is approved and wrongness to what ought not to be or what is disapproved by the society.

Kanyane (2010: 82) explains that within the context of the public service, leaders and managers need to possess high standards of principles and professionalism, two convergent qualities that could be considered non-negotiable

Public officials and managers have therefore been considered accountable only to the extent, which they are legally required to answer for their actions. Furthermore, these authors then argue that this approach should be expanded to include issues like morality of administrative actions.

An important guideline for moral behaviour in the public sector is the surveillance, which public officials have themselves as being trustees for the public good; an acceptance of this concept has the consequence that responsibility and accountability cannot be avoided (Craythorne 2003:260). This author further suggests (2003:261) that the challenge for local government is to create a new breed of practitioner, who will exhibit integrity of the highest degree and deal ruthlessly with any unethical conduct, breach of morality, and any waste of

It emphasizes the recognition of the ethical dimension in the organization and its environment. As such, they propose that there is a need for this ethical dimension to be managed alongside and integrated with other areas of management, such as, time management, human resource management, financial management and organizational design. According to the Public Service Commission, this organizational ethics management involves:

• Awareness of the ethical of an organization and the context, with which it interacts, and which also impacts on the organization;

• Behaviour or actions of individuals and groups, as well as the way organizational and social systems function;

• Developing sensitivity to the fact that everyday business practice implies decisions and actions motivated by certain moral values;

• Developing sensitivity to the obligation to be held for our moral values;

• The ability to distinguish right from wrong by carefully taking the interests of all and everything involved into account;

• The commitment to do what is right and to protest any action or decision that might lead to wrongdoing, or in itself is morally unacceptable;

• Regular revisiting of standards of organizational ethics;

• Regular accounting and auditing of and reporting on the management of ethics in the organization and the interaction with the social and natural