Africa-Press – Mauritius. Those who are placed in a position of trust have a duty to act with responsibility. The greater the amount of trust placed on them, the more responsibly are they expected to behave during their mandate.
It is unfortunately the case in many instances that this duty of trust is easily breached for private pursuits at the cost of the public interest. Most of the time, the abuse is out of the sight of the public.
Some local examples
At the time cooperatives started being formed in the country (in the 1950s), they were looked upon as clean institutions run by members of high integrity for the benefit of members, some sort of liberation from a capitalist system that did not allow small units to thrive in business.
Cooperatives actually lived up to the promise of better days to numerous families caught in repeating cycles of poverty. In past years, some cooperatives have come in the limelight for misgovernance of funds having resulted in significant losses for contributing members.
The noble ideal of altruistic social service with which cooperatives were started seemed to have been overtaken by those placed in positions of trust. On the other hand, the Covid-19 pandemic gave rise to multiple cases of corrupt dealings.
Corruption.
Pic – Shutterstock Public officers occupied positions in the public service in the hope of leaving behind a rich legacy of achievements, an enduring culture of high disciplined conduct for their successors to continue building upon them.
Some were remembered at the end of their careers for having improved public health services to a standard comparable with what obtained in developed countries.
Others lifted the education system to international levels, despite the limited resources available. Still others made their mark in the judicial system, their principled decisions being lauded in higher courts of appeal. Our agricultural research received very high international regards.
A few years back, we learnt about how pandemic procurement procedures provided the opportunity of considerable derailment and corruption to the tune of hundreds of millions of rupees, if not billions; in connivance with high officials shady business operators have been reported to have made mega profits on all fronts.
Earlier, others have taken decisions, such as in the Betamax and BAI cases, which have cost the public exchequer several billions of rupees in damages for not having followed due process. Even if they step out of office – being no longer held directly accountable – the liability has had to be borne by the country.
It is the reason why when offices involving public trust were given to certain individuals, those individuals were vetted for the necessary character and abilities to be able to “deliver the goods”.
Once officers started seeing their offices more as private dens for self-gratification and for the exercise of oppressive power – and not for the public good — the element of public trust was seriously undermined.
Another example may be taken from the political field. From independence, we’ve seen several alternations of political parties in power. Some have credited these alternations of power as the accepted play of democracy.
In reality, political parties, having messed it up in the course of a mandate or not delivered on electoral promises, have come back to power in new disguises with new alliances of political parties.
Voters have trusted these new alliances each time believing that “things will now change for the better”. Sometimes, the situation has ended up becoming worse than before. It is only after the event that voters have realised that they had again misplaced their trust.
Source: Mauritius Times
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