How to avoid unethical conduct during lockdown

If you’re a good student of history, you can always see that both man-made and natural catastrophic events - such as floods, landslides, fires, terrorist attacks, wars, pestilences and pandemics - bring out two distinctions in human behaviour.

One, you can easily witness some brave and heroic moves and actions, particularly from those who respond positively to help fellow human beings, and also the minority who use the event as a way to enhance their own finances through fraud, scams, opportunistic politicians and corruption, often further victimising those whose lives were already devastated.

You’ve seen an escalation of online scammers, increase on activity from phishing sites, breakdown of government sites loosing important information, and degradation of the moral value of society through access to pornography and making of orgies. All this should concern us.

My point is on increased levels of corruption. Of concern to us is how it’s perpetuated in the time of crisis. Corruption thrives with less oversight.

Emergency purchases are catalytic to the vice. Crisis and how leadership behaves is the ultimate measure of integrity on them.

In a time like this, it’s so unfortunate to learn of a county buying a 200 litre water container, which should ideally cost Sh1,000, at Sh10,000.

It’s bad to know that top officials from six counties are being investigated over alleged misappropriation of funds meant to fight the coronavirus pandemic; that the individuals are being probed over abuse of procurement procedures — as well as hiking of prices, which have emerged as the most common avenues county staff use to skim public resources.

What do we need to avoid all this? Firstly, conduct public service education, which is very key and low cost; it’s also preventive.

Second, enactment of legislation: we should be happy because the National Treasury has just gazetted the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Regulations.

Any other conflicting legislation should be reviewed in consultation with stakeholders. Lastly, law enforcement. The EACC, DCI, Financial Reporting Centre and all other institutions should ensure that the corrupt are jailed and justice upheld.

Donors should also act responsibly. Do not respond to any unsolicited (spam) e-mails, including clicking on links contained within those messages, because they may contain viruses.

Be sceptical of individuals presenting themselves as victims of Covid-19, or officials asking for donations, and organisations with names almost similar to those of popular ones.

Do not be pressured into making contributions. Avoid cash donations; try to buy items and give so that they can be delivered. Do not aid graft and fraud.