If a superior instructs an employee to place an order for something without the proper tender procedures being followed, the employee may ask that the accounting officer be approached for a decision.
An employee must not favour relatives and friends in work-related activities and never abuse their authority or influence another employee. This includes:
Favouritism – where singled-out employees are appointed, promoted, transferred, or given generous treatment based on friendship, returning a favour, etc.
Nepotism — where an employee is appointed, promoted, transferred, or given some or other advantage because they are family or friends with a superior.
A budget programme manager or responsibility manager must take care to use the public funds entrusted to them to achieve the objective of the programme.
An employee must not engage in any action that is in conflict with his or her official duties. For example, an employee working with tax assessments may not, extramurally or during official hours and for extra remuneration, or as a favour, help members of the public to evade tax.
An employee may not serve on the board of an organisation/business with which his or her department does business.
An employee must not get involved in any official action or decision-making process which may result in improper personal gain, and this should be properly declared by the employee.
Whenever employees feel that they cannot remain objective in performing their work or making a decision, they must immediately withdraw from such activities and the employee should also declare this in writing. For example, an employee must not sit on a job interview panel if he or she knows the person being interviewed.
An employee must be honest and accountable in dealing with public funds and use resources effectively, efficiently, and only for authorised official purposes.
Employees are expected to bring about savings for the taxpayer in the way that they handle public property and funds.
An employee who uses state property (like cars, machines, furniture, etc), negligently or recklessly and causes damage, is wasting taxpayers’ money.
An employee uses state property (like cars, machines, furniture, etc) for his or her private purposes is stealing from the state and the taxpayer.
In doing his or her job, a public servant must report fraud, corruption, nepotism and maladministration to the appropriate authorities.
It is the duty of all employees to report any dishonest behaviour, corruption, maladministration and fraud to their supervisors or a relevant authority as soon as possible. Corrupt practices are often fed by lack of work ethic, absence of public accountability and responsibility, nepotism and a “get rich quick” attitude. Examples of this follow:
An employee who is responsible for transporting employees regularly with a government minibus might be allowed, for practical reasons, to drive himself or herself home in it. If his or her colleagues notice the employee is using the state minibus as a taxi to make extra money, they must immediately report this to the employee’s supervisor. If appropriate steps are not taken, the matter can also be reported to the Public Protector.
If an employee in the Department of Transport responsible for issuing traffic fines and is offered money by a driver as a bribe, he or she must report the person offering the bribe. If an employee accepts any bribe, he or she is also guilty of corruption.
If an employee is not involved in corrupt practices, but is aware of colleagues who are and does not report the malpractice, he or she becomes an accessory to corruption.
An employee must not, without prior written approval of the Head of Department accept any private gifts, benefits or item worth more than R350 from any person during the performance of duties as these may be seen as bribes.
Unless it is officially required that a member of the public pay an additional amount for a specific service (eg where a certain amount has to be paid for the issuing of an identity document), no further payments be it in cash or kind, should be made.
Service providers in the private sector must know that gifts, sponsorships, lunch invites, etc should not form part of promotional campaigns in government as it creates the impression of improper influencing of decision-takers it also makes for unfair competition where small service providers cannot afford to undertake such activities.
Hospitality from a source other than a family member needs to be declared.
An employee must not, without approval, undertake paid work outside his or her official duties or use office equipment for such work. Examples of this follow:
An employee becomes a partner in business but has arranged to work there after hours only. If, unexpectedly, his or her work in government demands overtime, there could be a conflict of interest, frustration and divided attention.
A medical doctor employed in a state hospital must not, without the head of department’s approval, do paid part-time work at a friend’s surgery and/or use government equipment and/or medicines for this purpose.
