Ethical Values and Corruption in Housing Service Delivery: Comparative Reflections from South Africa and India

This article relates human ethics ( both individual and collective) to everyday and long term experiences of public servants and their experiences of corruption, and greed amid real or imagined ethical dilemmas in the sphere of their service to citizens within housing service provision in South Africa, and will draw a comparative perspective to India. It deals with organisational structures that open the door to an examination of the nature and causes of corruption that has been the centre of countless efforts to comprehend the real threat of corruption to development, democracy and human rights throughout the world. As South Africa continues her dream for a 'better life for all' and a non-racial, non-sexist democratic society, corruption not only persists, but expands daily in all governmental layers despite the fact it has introduced a wide variety of comprehensive anti-corruption legislations and institutions. Ethical behaviour in the present article is not presented as an abstract philosophical concept, but as an empirical reality rooted on empirical research dealing with the political, economic and social power relationships in a public institution. In drawing this analysis, this investigation, which is based on primary and secondary sources, including official documents and face to face interviews, will not concentrate on the existence of an ethical code of behaviour and its significance as a shield against corrupt practices, but will attempt to go deeper by providing a dissection of existing relations. It will not attempt to deal with corruption as a phenomenon that has become pervasive and has negative consequences on the general well-being of a society, but will attempt a deeper understanding of the motives and opportunities that lead to a deeply embedded problem and challenge for both the private and public sectors. Its empirical component signifies the multi-faced nature of corruption as well as the sometimes competing, occasionally complementary, and mostly fused power relationships. The article shows that unless these realities become understood in their human, individual, political and organisational terrains, efficient and effective engagement with policy and practice will remain a pipedream.