Compliance of Ethics Infrastructure for Public Officials' Assets Declaration in Tanzania

Abstract

‘Ethical infrastructure’ is considered as one of the tools for ensuring that public officials declare their assets and comply with ethical standards in different countries across the globe. This is even more important in developing countries where corruption is perceived to be a major threat to development. Despite this recognition, most countries especially in the developing world suffer from ineffective assets declaration by public officials and a lack of compliance to ethical standards. A similar situation is repored in Tanzania where lack of compliance with ethical standards and assets declaration has been the order of the day despite the establishment of ethics infrastructure. This article examines existing ethics infrastructure in the public service and establishes the reason for the noncompliance of public officials to the existing ethics infrastructure in assets declaration. This paper, is a desk review of concept, theory and empirics of assets declaration and assets infrastructure across the globe and Tanzania in particular and the review includes the analysis of rules, regulations and guidelines which constitutes ethics infrastructure and govern assets declaration in Tanzania. The findings of the review indicate that ethics infrastructure is a foundation for assets declaration but the actual implementation depends on the government's will and the strength of the enforcement mechanism. The government needs to increase the autonomy and resources for enforcing authority and transparency in assets declaration and provide ethical training to public officials.    

Keywords: Assets declaration, Ethical standards, Public service, Tanzania, Ethics infrastructure