Trust and accountability help cement honest professional relationships
Dr Janette Minnaar, the founder of Pro Ethics, an organisation that advocates for good governance and ethics in government and private sector, joined the conversation organised by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) on Thursday.
The virtual conference in Pretoria focused on corruption and integrity. Speaking at the conference, Minnaar touched on issues aligned to professional standards and also focused on how trust is built when it comes to accountability.
“We build trust when there is congruence between our words and our actions. Trust requires a certain level of demonstrated honesty or integrity. Only when our own integrity and motives are trusted, will clients approach us or stay with us. We therefore have to be intellectually honest in order to earn the trust of others,” said Minnaar.
She highlighted five main steps to apply in the fight against corruption, explaining that it is crucial to understand how rogues can be dealt with when they get involved in illegal activities.
Minnaar said in fighting corruption, there should be prevention, detection, investigation, reporting and prosecution as key factors that can eradicate the rot that is consuming the country.
“There is a duty on persons who hold a position of authority or who knew or ought reasonably to have known or suspected that any person has committed offence in terms of the act or theft, fraud, extortion, forgery or uttering involving more than R100 000 to report it to the police,” she said.
She added that the intellectual honesty requires that a professional demonstrates a high level of care, skill, diligence and good faith in the performance of his/her duties.
“Care means that I am carefully considering all available options and solutions best suited for the client. Good faith means that I will avoid all the conflicts of interest.”
She also focused on the final test for being professional and ethical, stating that in order to know that a person is living up to the highest standard of professionalism and ethical behaviour, such a person “needs to act in accordance with three main imperatives, namely: 1, to comply with all legal requirements; 2, upholding any other relevant rule, code or policy; 3, and to be ethical at all times by acting with intellectual honesty by exercising care, skill, diligence and good faith; and going beyond the demands of laws and rules by doing the right thing.”
Through her discussion, Minnaar also advised the NLC to tighten the screws on anti-corruption and gift policies.
“A well-formulated anti-corruption and antifraud policy is a minimum requirement to prevent corruption.
“This should be supplemented by a gift policy, where some guidelines in the gift policy should address issues of how often an employee or an official receives gifts, among others.”
NLC secretary advocate Nompumelelo Nene said the organisation is dealing with complaints by members of the public on issues relating to scams and fraud.
Nene said: “The National Lotteries Commission is also cautioning the public, stakeholders and applicants on a scam that affects the organisation.
“The scam is currently operating in Gauteng and North West. At least 22 of the applicants and other members of the public have been affected by this scam across the provinces.”
She stated that a syndicate, pretending to be employees of the NLC, is targeting many organisations that have applied for funding and promising them many things in an effort to scam them.
She said the NLC is working hard to ensure that the organisation roots out fraud and corruption, which impact negatively on the organisation’s operations.