For us to realise sustainable development, social welfare and enjoy a cohesive coexistence then all we need is an integrity driven Kenyan society.
An integrity-driven Kenyan society shall be attained when we foster a culture of integrity across all levels and spheres of our society —personal, professional, institutional and societal levels.
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization defines culture as the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of a society or a social group.
This means that in order to foster a culture of integrity in the Kenyan society, integrity must not only be reflected in our art and literature but we must also endeavour to collectively nature a patriotic, moral and ethical lifestyles, traditions and beliefs as a central component of our societal fabric i.e a culture integrity
Culture operates at two levels — material/ visible and invisible/ non material levels.
Invisible/ non material levels of culture relates to a society’s value system. If a society’s value system is integrity-driven anyone observing our culture will see an orderly, honest and virtuous society.
On the converse, if our societal culture is vices-driven, then we will record a corrupt, heartless and man eat man society.
An integrity driven Kenyan society will largely breed an integrity public service. This is because public service is a subset of the Kenyan society. Public service may be broadly broken into two levels. Namely policy formulation and policy implementation.
At public service policy formulation levels therein falls legislation, formulation of government manifestos, agenda and directives by state officers and management in various units of governments.
Policies, procedures and strategic direction issued in public services should always be on concurrence with local, regional and global sustainable development goals so as to enable a country to compete favourably in the global arena.
The core mandate of public service is to ensure formulation and implementation of public policy for the good and well being of the citizenry. A culture where formulation and implementation of public policy is driven by conflict of interest, improper conduct and ill motive would largely cultivate a culture of lack of integrity.
For public service to be effective, efficient and economical a culture of integrity has to be nurtured at personal, professional, institutional and societal level within our beloved country Kenya. This has to be strongly grounded in our value system.
Article 10 of the 2010 Constitution sets out national values and principles of good governance. This article calls upon Kenyans at personal level, professional and as legislators, when legislating, formulating and implementing policies to be guide by clearly spelt out value system.
If as individuals and further collectively as a nation we embrace national values and principals of governance as is detailed in Article 10, we will in essence foster a culture of integrity that will transform our public service into an efficient, effective and economical service delivery machinery which will greatly up lift the livelihoods of our people and greatly spur our gross domestic product, par capita and quality of life.
Integrity speaks to us on being virtues and shunning vices. Today, if we speak of rampant graft, ethical breaches such as conflict of interest, favoritism among others and economic crimes. It means that we have not internalized Article 10 of the Constitution.
In order to live this article of the Constitution each one of us should ask themselves whenever they transact at personal or official level; whether their intentions and actions are for the greater good of our country Kenya, fellow citizens, employer and for your environment in general.
If that holds, then our individual and collective actions would amount to acts of integrity. Short of which one would be indulging in graft, ethical breach and/ or economic crime.
The Constitution again in Chapter Six gives guiding principles of leadership and integrity. In this chapter, a culture of integrity is epitomized through personal integrity, competence, meritocracy, objectivity/ impartiality in decision making, selfless service, accountability for one’s actions/ decision, discipline and commitment in personal and public life.
If we hold each other to account and live the letter and spirit of this chapter then as citizens we will be fostering as culture of integrity. By our incoming governors signing up to the Leadership and Integrity Code, our leaders have taken a great leap in spear heading an integrity driven Kenyan society.
By virtue of their position, influence, trust and might following across the country they as expressly princes/ princess of integrity. Moving forward our governors should now intensify signing/ commitment to integrity pacts by their stakeholders, cascade integrity codes and operationalize integrity mechanism in their systems, processes and procedure of work. Integrity codes will hence go along way in cultivating a culture of integrity and further facilitate efforts to serve the people efficiently, effectively and economically
In fostering a culture of integrity in public service let us call to mind article 232 of the Constitution. In this article our Constitution calls to mind values and principles of public service.
This article obligates public officials to subscribe and uphold values and principles of public service in the discharge of public responsibilities. The family of values aforementioned interplay with each other and primarily build upon each other conceiving a values system leads to an integrity driven Kenyan society.
Authored by CPA Peter Onyango - Bungoma
