WESTERN ADMNISTRATION AND ITS EFFECT ON AFRICA DEVELOPMENT

THE PROBLEM OF AFRICA ON DEMOCRACY THROUGH ETHICAL,

PROFESSIONAL, ACCOUNTABLE, INTERGRAL AND OPENNES
CASE OF EAST AFRICA

By:- Philipo Mwamunyange

&
Shashieka Fernando
 ABSTRACT
Most of the African countries are still struggling for development, various still in covered with the
darkness of poverty. There many scholars who suggested various views in the development of Africa
continent yet there are few or no positives results of their theories, the donors have been giving huge
contribution on various sectors through monetary ,physical and moral aids yet there less than
expectation, regarding that Africa continent if focused well in the problem facing it. It have ability to
provide or to feed the whole through agriculture, it have ability to provide sustainable tourism, enough
to provide raw materials and mineral to the whole but only this can be achievable only when Africans,
leaders and the world organizations change their altitude on Africa and put more focus on the problem
than providing funds and building projects which are not really problem of Africa. In here we going to
see how poor governance is itself endogenously determined by the backwardness of the economy; a
corrupt and incompetent government is part of the development problem, not just a cause of it Africa
remain poor but also injustice, corrupt and undemocratic
1. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
African continent since the creation of the it, it has never been regarded as poor place on earth due to
the fact that in back then before 15 century, at this time there no place to make comparison with due to
the factor that there were no contact with the outside world or any other continent to compare with , as
Rodney says ;(Development in human society is a many-sided process. At the level of the individual, it
implies increased skill and capacity, greater freedom, creativity, self-discipline, responsibility and
material well-being. Some of these are virtually moral categories and are difficult to evaluate –
depending as they do on the age in which one lives, one’s class origins, and one’s personal code of
what is right and what is wrong)
According to the school of thought (J. E. Casely-Hayford, 1922) at least most of these continents were
in the same level of development ‘Before even the British came into relations with our people, we were
a developed people, having our own institutions, having our own ideas of government. ‘in return it is
almost 50 to 60 years now of African countries independents and freedom Africa is still one poor place
on earth , its people suffering from malnutrition, starvation, war on borders, civil war, tribe and ethnics
disputes.
There many strategies and effort African governments have been doing and still doing yet yield a little
result in serving African people, in east Africa countries there adopted various system of
administration, from democracy, limited democracy, social life and social justice such as socialism,
capitalism and even there once tried to establish east Africa community in 1967 and collapsed in 1977
all this were done to fasten development but none of this gave satisfying results to the people,
The east African community has been renewed its team already in operation with the Republics of
Kenya, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania, Republic of Rwanda and Republic of Burundi with
its headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania. East African Community was signed on 30 November 1999 and
entered into force on 7 July 2000 following its ratification by the original three Partner States – Kenya,
Uganda and Tanzania. The Republic of Rwanda and the Republic of Burundi acceded to the EAC
Treaty on 18 June 2007 and became full Members of the Community with effect from 1 July 2007.
In order to attain development most of the African countries had to look back to history of the continent
without condemning the fact but accepting it and restructuring the whole governing system, with regard
on the nature behavior and characters of African people themselves in so doing African leaders and
African people themselves will not be going against their own nature but rather achieving their goals
without destroying the history and development which already achieved as well as maintaining good
relationship with the outside world in a win - win relations

2. CONCEPTULIZATION
1.2 ETHICAL
There is no universal agreement definition on term “ethics or ethical” (Ayee, 1998). The question of
ethics is one that is linked to the history of humankind. It is said to deals with the character and conduct
of morals of human beings. It deals with good or bad, right or wrong behavior it puts negative or
positive values on it (Hanekom, 1984). Similarly, Chapman (1993) defines ethics as the basic principles
of the right action and rules of conduct. These criteria can be in writing or merely the interpretation by
an individual of what is acceptable and what is not. The Charter for the Public Service in Africa refers
to ethics as “the standards which guide the behaviors and actions of personnel in public institutions”
Article 22 of this Charter further provides ethics to mean a sound culture based on ethical values and
principles. Such values and principles according to the Charter include efficiency, professional
discipline, dignity, equity, impartiality, fairness, public – spirited and courtesy in the discharge of
duties. Therefore public service ethics are broad norms that delineate how public servants – as agents of
the state and ,where applicable, as members of an established profession such as accounting, law,
human resource management, etc should exercise judgment and discretion in carrying out their official
duties, if ethical fail to ( or in case of lower ) performances then in any country leadership and
individual moral the possibility of the given state or national development is in high state of fail as
well, the history of African administrative system and those of western style in background or
historically was never been the same as of western style
2.2 ACCOUNTABLE
Accountable or accountability although accountability is widely believed to be a good and effective
thing, this is highly abstract and it is often used in a very general way (Hulme and Sanderatne, 2008). A
typical definition is that accountability concerns the reality that the elected candidates and those who
are given the ability to exercise power whether as governments, as elected representatives or as
appointed officials, must be able to show that they have used their power and discharged their duties in
a proper way which create faith to citizens instead of loosing trust from citizens
Fox Meyer (1995) defines accountability as the “responsibility of government and its agents towards
the public to achieve previously set objectives and to account for them in public” It is also regarded as
a commitment required from public officials individually and collectively to accept public
responsibility for their own action and inaction. In this case, the burden of accountability rests on each
public functionary to act in the public interest and according to his/her conscience, with solutions for
every matter based on professionalism and participation. is a concept in ethics and governance with
several meanings. It is often used synonymously with such concepts as responsibility, answer ability,
blameworthiness, liability, and other terms associated with the expectation of account-giving. As an
aspect of governance, it has been central to discussions related to problems in the public
sector, nonprofit and private (corporate) worlds. In leadership roles, accountability is the
acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, decisions, and policies
including the administration, governance, and implementation within the scope of the role or
employment position and encompassing the obligation to report, explain and be answerable for
resulting consequences.
Accountability in the public sector is broader than in the private sector (Ole Ingstrup and Crookall,
1998). In the private sector, everyone in the company is accountable to its board. The public sector is
also accountable to a board of sorts: the minister, cabinet and legislature. But the public sector has
additional accountability to its employees and to its customers, the citizens who use the services – as
well as to its non – customers, the citizens who don’t use the service. It is a different kind of
accountability, more subtle and indirect. Therefore, in general accountability for performance and the
obligation that public functionaries (elected and appointed officials) have to give a satisfactory
explanation over the exercise of power, authority and resources entrusted in them on behalf of the
public (tax payer). Subsumed with this definition is a myriad of legal, oral and ethical obligations that
come with the occupancy of any public office (Sarji, 1995). In short, it is the obligation to carry out
assigned activities in a responsible and responsive manner, and being held answerable for success or
failure. As such when we talk about “accountability” in the public service, we cannot but consider the
question of bureaucratic responsibility.
Internal accountability means that at each level in the hierarchical organization, public officials are
accountable to those who supervise and control their work. On the other hand, external accountability
means answer ability for action carried out and performance achieved to other relevant and concerned
authorities outside his/her department or organization. Accountability is therefore an ethical virtue,
since ethics concern principles and rules that govern the moral value of people’s behavior. Improving
ethics is crucial to enhancing accountability and vice versa
Accountability are of many types there is ethical accountability which is based on the practice of
improving overall personal and organizational performance by developing and promoting responsible
tools and professional expertise, and by advocating an effective enabling environment for people and
organizations to embrace a culture of sustainable development. Ethical accountability may include the
individual, as well as small and large businesses, not-for-profit organizations, research institutions and
academics, and government and then there is administrative accountability in which is internal rules
and norms as well as some independent commission are mechanisms to hold civil servant within the
administration of government accountable. Within department or ministry, firstly, behavior is bounded
by rules and regulations secondly, civil servants are subordinates in a hierarchy and accountable to
superiors. Nonetheless, there are independent “watchdog” units to scrutinize and hold departments in
terms of accountable legitimacy of these commissions is built upon their independence as, it avoids any
conflicts of interest. Third is market accountability which is Under voices for decentralization and
privatization of the government, services provided are nowadays more “customer-driven” and should
aim to provide convenience and various choices to citizens; with this perspective, there are
comparisons and competition between public and private services and this, ideally, improves quality of
service. As mentioned by Bruce Stone, the standard of assessment for accountability is therefore
“responsiveness of service providers to a body of ‘sovereign’ customers and produce quality service.
Outsourcing service is one means to adopt market accountability. Government can choose among a
shortlist of companies for outsourced service; within the contracting period, government can hold the
company by rewriting contracts or by choosing another company.
3.2 OPENNESS
This sometimes known as transparency which promotes accountability and provides information for
citizens about what their government and its agents are doing. If government lack openness to its
citizens then that is a good indicator that the government had failure in or it’s not accountable and
ethical generally, “openness” implies transparency, communication and accountability. It is a
metaphorical extension of the meaning a “transparent” object is one that can be seen through. With
regard to the public services, it means that holders of public office should be as open as possible about
all the decisions and actions they take. They should give reasons for their decisions and restrict
information only when the wider public interest demands it (Chapman, 2000). Radical transparency in
management demands that all decision making should be carried out publicly. All draft documents, all
arguments for and against a proposal, the decision about the decision making process itself, and all
final decisions, are made publicly and remain publicly in this case most of the African government has
been lacking the case of openness which results into civil unrest the countries like DRC(democratic
republic of Congo) has been facing this problem for such long time ,Sudan the south Sudan civil and
political unrest whereby there no any convincing reasons for the outbreak and the country has been not
open to engage in solving the problem and bring peace in a region. Same problem had happened in
Republic of Tanzania during election in 2010 due to two political (CCM and CHADEMA) parties
disagreement in election results Also same case had once happened in Kenya election few years back
whereby number of people were injured, mainly political unrest in Africa are result of lack of
transparent of the government toward the citizen
4.2 INTERGRAL
Sometimes known as integrity the concept of integrity has to do with perceived consistency of actions,
values, methods, measures, principles, expectations and outcome. When used as a virtue term,
“integrity” refers to a quality of a person’s character. Some people see integrity as the quality of having
a sense of honesty and truthfulness in regard to the motivations for one’s actions.
Persons of integrity do not just act consistently with their endorsements, they stand for something they
stand up for their best judgment within a community of people trying to discover what in life is worth
doing. Some commentators stress the idea of integrity as personal honesty acting according to one’s
beliefs and values at all times. Speaking about integrity can emphasize the “wholeness” or “intactness”
of a moral stance or attitude. Some of the wholeness may also emphasize commitment and authenticity.
In the context of accountability, integrity serves as a measure of willingness to adjust value system to
maintain or improve its consistency when an expected result appears in congruent with observed
outcome. Some regard integrity as a virtue in that they see accountability and moral responsibility as
necessary tools for maintaining such consistency. As Carter (1906) has stated integrity requires three
steps discerning what is right and what is wrong acting on what you have discerned even at personal
cost and saying openly that you are acting on your understanding of right from wrong
5.2 PROFESSIONALISM
Within the context of this paper, public service professionalism is defined as the overall value that
encompasses all other values that guide the public service. They include loyalty, neutrality,
transparency, diligence, punctuality, effectiveness, impartiality, and other values that may be specific to
the public services of individual countries. Public Service Professionalism embraces the notion that
those people who join the Public Service need to be inculcated with shared values and trained in basic
skills to professionally carry out their official duties. It is very normal or it is made common in East
African countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi to find that some leaders
were not trained in to be some kind of sectors yet most of them their leading those sectors some can be
political leader in mining sector while his professional basically is medicine or healthy sector so here
we find out most of these political leaders like ministers or professionals such as directors fail to
implement the effective development policy in the sector their governing while if they were in their
basic professional could make easier for them as their expert in the field
The rationale behind professionalism is that public servants should be neutral, impartial, fair, and
competent and serve the public interest in carrying out their duties. They should be top people who are
fairly remunerated and adequately trained to perform their work. Professionalism, in a sense means
excellent work culture, is an internalized duty to do well. It is a kind of performance ethic, close to a
noble calling, by which professionals simply are called to do their best, for anything less would be
embarrassing to them. It is an ingrained pride in performance. More than that professionalism is
adherence to a set of normative and behavioral expectations usually embodied in a code of ethics.

3. ADMNISTRATIVE PROBLEMS FACING THE FIVE CONCEPTS

THE CASE OF EAST AFRICA

1.3. DEMOCRACY

Africa nations as it is said above in the introduction according to the nature of African or pre colonial
societies African didn’t practice democracy rather than rule of law, the rule of law in pre colonial
societies where the most practices and it is the one we can use to define the nature of Africa including
east Africa itself We find that African countries where a larger share of the population belongs to ethnic
groups with centralized (rather than fragmented) pre-colonial institutions have lower corruption and
better rule of law. Pre-colonial institutions crucially shaped Modernization efforts in colonial Uganda.
Also it could be found in Rwanda and some parts of kagera (Tanzania) the aim of this paper is not to
show how pre colonial societies existed or organized but through that we can easily trace why African
democracy has malfunction and through democracy people can achieve development and better
administration function in the various organ.

Since independence of Africa most African nations including East Africa itself democracy has never
been well practiced. There is more danger to fear in democratic practice of East African nations and
Africa in general, when dangers mentioned here it means threat in terms of administrative behaviors
and social development. In 2007 the presidential election in Kenya was world headlines for all the
various reasons, after widespread violence left over 1,500 people dead. Elections held there in 2002
were widely regarded as democratic, voting out the ruling party that had been in power since
independence in 1963. After what was described as Kenya’s most competitive elections, Raila Odinga
was said to have beaten President Mwai Kibaki, but official results that were delayed eventually
announced Kibaki the winner.

The same happened in Tanzania election in 2010 where by the results were delayed for almost one day
and at the end of day the ruling party took over again and President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete was
announced winner against Dr Slaa but the question remaining the same is this what democracy mean
for Africa, in Uganda President Yoweri Museven has already abolished presidential term limits in
accordance with what claimed to be the discovered of Oil in lake Albert in order to avoid conflicts as
what happening in Nigeria due to discover of oil, is this the fact or Museven is using oil reason to keep
up himself into power,

In short what Africa demand more is not western democracy but rather justice, rule of law, and equality
in doing so there will be better administration system and Africa will experience development just like
their allies China who condemned to have no human right unsteady of democracy. This poor
democratic practices one by African countries supported more by western powers proves failure of
various government in African nations and threatens African economy and political opportunity of the
developing countries, when democracy is not well practiced it is against accountability it also distort
professionalism and integrity it a case than one cannot intercommunicate or engaged with others and
also there is no effective accountable in government organ where by people don’t act responsible to
their duty which lead to poor administrative method . According to Weber’s pessimistic belief that there
is a distinct tension between the administrative and democratic realm under Habermas’ theorem, it is in
the distinction between the public and private realm that the fluid and essentially free format of
legislative deliberation is possible for individuals attempting to create a communicative agreement.
This polity emerges out of a public discourse attained through the social experiences gained in civil
society, and the political discussion of the effects we have on each other. In a more subordinated
approach to legislative/judicial power attained by recognizing the multi- dimensional reality of today’s
society

2.3. CORRUPTION

Corruption is another threat to the economy and political fortunes of poor countries the most bribery
and conflict of interest or illegal deals impose heavy costs on the economy while distorting
development policies and undermining confidence in public institutions. Broadly defined, according to
(Cipe, 2008) corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for personal gain Corruption is one of the most
serious unethical practices that undermine trust and confidence of public officials. Public confidence
can only be reclaimed by establishing a reputation of integrity. Both business and society bear the costs
of corruption through various ways such as when there is corruption in administrative system in east
Africa corruption is the major problem facing the countries and community in general according to
various reports Kenya corruption ranked the first in East Africa compared to 65 percent of Tanzania
and 60 of Uganda this report was due to The East Africa Bribery Index 2009 a joint project of
Transparency International-Kenya, Transparency International-Uganda, and Tanzania Transparency
Forum. The main cause of corruption in east Africa and Africa in general are due to

1. Unclear, complex, and frequently changing laws and regulations

When laws are contradictory or require heavy interpretation, the discretionary power of officials is
amplified, increasing the risk that they will make arbitrary, self – serving decisions when laws are
unpredictable, entrepreneurs do not know their rights and obligations, so they can not comply fully nor
defend themselves for example against illegal inspections. Corruption then becomes a means to
circumvent inefficiency and arbitrary official actions. Normally in East Africa countries the reverse of
rule of law for protection of people in to power are made common the constitution are made to favours
the leaders for example in Tanzania it’s impossible to incriminate the president for what he had done
when was into power that make him easy to misuse his power this cause lack of integrity between
people who are into power and the people they rule, the ruler and the ruled.

2. Lack of transparency and accountability

When deals are made behind closed doors, it becomes impossible to assess the criteria behind
decisions, whether they serve public interest and respect the law. If violators on both the public and
private sides conceal their transactions, they escape being accountable. They also various scandal
regarding leaders to sign various agreement which were not open to citizens in East Africa such as the
radar scandal of Tanzania which involved British company this came after the company allegedly
admitted it was guilty of dubious financial dealings in its sale of a USD 46million Watch Air Traffic
Control System to Tanzania the contact where signed in 1999 and it was not open to citizen

3. Low public service salaries

Among the countries which face low wages and long working hours are African countries in east Africa
for example the normal salary of an official can at least rank from 200$ to 500$ such as teachers,
military, police and other security organ they are the lowest salary earners when officials cannot meet
what they perceive as their daily needs through their salaries, they resort to corruption to supplement
their income. However, simply raising the wages of officials will not curb corruption so long as
opportunities to abuse the system persist.

Exhibit (1.3)
COUNTRY TOTAL GDP GDP PPP(PER HDI IN 2005
(NOMINAL )BILL CAPITAL IN 2005
US$ 2006 US$
KENYA 21.19 1,359 0.521
TANZANIA 12.78 1,018 0.467
UGANDA 9.32 991 0.505
RWANDA 2.49 813 0.452
BURUNDI 0.81 699 0.413
SOURCE: Wikipedia article on Economy of Africa GDP on various East Africa countries.

4. Inadequate, inconsistent, and unfair enforcement of laws and regulations

In east Africa the law against corruption are open but most of the time this law contradicts with the
constitutions of the these nations which results into poor administrative power and misuse of public
properties by either the people who enforce and protect law which is lawyers, police, judges and court
judicial system or the people who make law ministers and members of parliament, Even if laws to
combat corruption are on the books, law enforcement can invite abuse. A weak justice system, low
penalties, and high cost of compliance will render laws ineffective which in return will lead to
unsatisfying of public administrative method which cause corrupt of moral of workers against concept
of integrity

4. EFFECTS OF CORRUPTION IN ADMNISTRATION

1. Lower investment
In any corrupt nation development must be very slow in fact Foreign and domestic investors are scared
off by unpredictable costs. Rampant corruption signals to potential investors that the rule of law, and
thus property rights, are very weak in the country, making an investment there a risky proposition,
Lower investment means lower growth. Corruption has made major impacts on political and public
administration where by the workers and official moral breakdown start when the officials start to serve
for themselves this become problem to administrative accountability which reduce the effectiveness of
the majority and deteriorate economy and development

2. Unresponsive policies and poor administration

Law makers in corrupt systems use their powers to help rent – seekers, not citizenry as a whole.
Bureaucrats are not held accountable for their performance and actually have incentives to delay
services in order to extract bribes. Poor administration policy can lead to government failure mostly
politicians might have poor information on how to provide service or which type of service to provide
to citizens in East African nations this has caused poverty and lack of public services in many parts of
the area, politician are basically based on political matters rather than identifying problems to their
societies

3. Reduction in competition, efficiency and innovation

For instance the companies which are owned by the people who are into power or multibillion
companies can easily enter competition due to the fact that they can use their superiority to overtake the
weak also rent – seeking means that favored companies do not compete on market signals alone, while
new firms face high barriers to entry. Consumers end up paying in terms of higher prices, lower quality,
and limited product offerings.

4. Exacerbated poverty
Corruption lowers the income potential of the poor because there are fewer private sector opportunities.
It also limits their access to quality public services such as health care and education.

5. Resource Misallocation
In public administration man power is basic part of developing good services to societies but
knowledge know how is the most required factor for one to inter the services but where there is
corruption it might mislead the society into incompetent officers who are not well trained into
discipline required which directly affecting professionalism, Human Resources that could be put to
productive uses are instead devoted to corruption. Firms waste time and resources on rent – seeking –
cultivating relationships with officials and spending on bribes, Officials make biased decisions (e.g. in
investment) that do not serve the public interest, and taxpayers swallow the cost.

5. CONCLUSION
In their books (Robert B. Denhardt and Professor Janet Vinzant Denhardt) the new public services;
serving rather than steering, they have focused seven lesson on how new public services has to be done
one is serve rather steer which mean in public administrative the most important thing is to help citizen
articulate and meet their shared interest rather than to attempt to control society in new direction in a
democratic society it is rely to see conflicts in election time, it is hard to see citizen conflict or unrest
due to election result, citizen unrest during elections show how the state or nation tries to control
people opinion in their direction which is in some way or another is it undemocratic but cohesive and
not rule of law but power also they continue to say public administrators must contribute to build a
collective shared notion of the public interest, the goal is not to find quick driven by individual choices
but rather it is the creation of shared interest and shared responsibility, public servants should be
attentive to more than the market they should also attend to statutory and constitutional law,
community values, political norms and professional standards and citizens interests, which is
accountability in another way, also the democratic government think strategically and act
democratically always the government which doesn’t think strategically is a failed government and
need a reform to be active for future development. In public administration the governments have to
value people or public interest and citizen must be committed to making meaningful contribution to
society rather than by entrepreneurial managers acting as if public money were theirs
6. REFFERENCES

BOOKS AND JOURNALS

The African Communist A published quarterly by the South African Communist

Party as a forum for Marxist-Leninist thought Issue Number 177 of First Quarter 2009

The African Communist a published quarterly by the South African Communist Party as a forum for
Marxist-Leninist thought Issue Number 180 of 2nd & 3rd Quarter 2010

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, 1998, 47 (1), 29–44 Contributions of

Behavioral Decision Theory to Research in Political Science by Richard R. Lau and Jack S. Levy
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA

Consideration of the original of Herbert Simon’s theory of ‘’satisficing’’ 1933- 1947 Reva Brown
oxford university business school oxford UK

The New Public Services; Serving Rather than Steering (Robert B. Denhardt and Janet Vinzant
Denhardt)

South African Government Information, ‘President Jacob Zuma concludes working visit to Dar es
Salaam, Tanzania’, 7th May 2010 (http://www.info.gov.za/speeches/2010/10051009051002.htm).

LINKS PDF

maxweber.pdf
Social_Accountability_in_the_Public_Sector_with_cover.pdf
Pre-colonial nicola.pdf
file:///E:\files\conference-democracy-23062010-Henderson%5b1%5d.pdf
E:\files\Does Corruption Cause Poverty.docx
E:\files\articles_who-owns.doc
file:///E:\files\AfropaperNo117%5b1%5d.pdf
file:///E:\political%20science%20book\issue182%5b1%5d.pdf
file:///E:\political%20science%20book\issue177%5b1%5d.pdf

WEBSITE & INTERNET

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_failure
http://tutor2u.net/economics/content/topics/externalities/government_failure.htm
http://tutor2u.net/economics/revision-notes/a2-micro-government-failure.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Africa