By Jacinta Nwachukwu
Abuja – Mr Biobelemoye Josiah, the National President of Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria (MHWUN), has attributed unethical practices in the administration of public service examinations to social decay, more permissive society, among others.
Public service examinations include recruitment tests and promotion examinations.
Josiah expressed the view in a paper, “Imperative Need for Best Practices in Recruitment and Promotion of Workers with Responsibility for Life and Death Decisions’’ he delivered at a conference in Abuja on Thursday.
The conference on Mainstreaming Ethics, Transparency and Best Practices in Administration of Public Service Recruitment and Promotion Examinations was organised by Exam Ethics Marshals International.
He said people were aware of unethical acts in such examinations and stressed that certain communications created the atmosphere for people to commit crime.
“Society’s standards are lower; social decay; more permissive society; materialism and hedonism have grown as well as more quantity desires.
“Also unnecessary quest to succeed; current economic conditions, corruption, loss of confidence, general political ethics and climate are contributors to lower ethical standard,’’ he added.
Other factors are greed; unnecessary desire for gain; selfishness and the lack of personal integrity among individuals.
He also alleged that pressure for profit from superiors or stakeholders and organisational influences on managers hindered implementation of ethical standard in public service.
Josiah, however, noted that once the existing factors affecting ethical standards were addressed, the issue of having compromised public service promotion examinations would not occur.
According to him, sanity and uprightness in the conduct of public service promotion examinations rests on the applicant and the examiner as well.
“When examinations are conducted and the best among equals are certified and promoted, it will give a signal of the presence of future team of intelligent, experienced and capable hands.’’
He said such future leaders ‘’will in turn train and mentor the upcoming generation for a better tomorrow’’.
Josiah noted that ethical and unethical decisions in organisations, especially in the public service, were not made in isolation of the bureaucrats in diverse capacities.
“The onus then is on whoever is occupying any position at any level to form part of the positive chain so it can rub off on every organisational area, including the conduct of promotion examinations.’’
Josiah advised Ministries, Departments and Agencies to uphold higher ethical standards to ensure better and effective service delivery.
He listed factors that could influence higher standards to include public disclosure; publicity; media coverage; better communication, increased public concern; public awareness; consciousness and scrutiny.
“Others are government regulation; legislation and positive court interventions, education of managers (staff) as well as increase in staff professionalism. (NAN)