A buyer has to be a person of integrity to make a difference in society.
Economists describe the long-run costs of integrity as relatively huge compared to the benefits when people systematically underestimate the costs.
The Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (Cips) reviewed its code of ethics recently and members are committed to it.
Members are persuaded to encourage their employers to adopt ethical policies based on the principle of the code and to report matters of concern relating to business ethics at an appropriate level.
The Cips has a disciplinary procedure which enables the investigation of complaints against any of its members and, if found that they breached the code, take appropriate action.
1400 were Cips members in 2010 from all people employed as buyers in the country. What is the implication? Majority of buyers are not conversant with the procurement code of ethics resulting in the rise of procurement corruption.
Lack of a procurement council makes it discretionary for buyers to uphold ethical conduct or stand for the Cips code of ethics.
This allows for components that malfunction in procurement to grow and establish roots.
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When the elements establish their roots in the rot, they simulate a broken vehicle on a busy road during the morning rush hour.
The recent media reports on buyers malfunctioning are leading to traffic jams in the social sectors. The law of integrity states that, as wholeness declines, the opportunity for performance declines.
Thus value maximisation using whatever performance measurement requires integrity.
Shareholders and ordinary citizens are suffering.
People miss appointments or report late for work due to traffic jam, resembling business failures and disappointed partners when profit targets are not met, customers waiting in vain to receive goods and services, citizens frustrated by government departments and councils’ failure to perform their mandate, or citizens rising against utilities because the costs of services are ever increasing beyond their reaches. Is this the ideal business environment?
Some of the Cips code of ethics oblige members to maintain the highest standards of integrity in all business relationships, reject any business practice which might reasonably be deemed improper and never use their authority or position for their personal gain among others.
It is important therefore that businesses envisage the value of business transactions from buyers governed by a code of ethics that is recognised by Zimbabwean laws.
Inevitably, we will hear more of reports such as the Bulawayo City Council procurement board striking off Easipark for purported unethical tendering behaviour.
Nyasha Chizu is the branch chairman of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply.
