Breakfast with Bongani Bingwa

Can we overcome political and economic instability with a simple word?

Chair of Anti-intimidation and Ethical Practices Forum, Dr Claudelle Von Eck believes that we can turn the corner as a united private and public sector by being ethical.

The AEPF’s founding members are dedicated to encouraging the eradication of corruption, unethical business practices, and whistle-blowing. Professional South Africans from both the public and private sectors, participated in a survey that provided great insight into their perceptions of ethics in society and the workplace.

The results of this survey were startling. A quarter agreed that doing the right thing is more important than financial success. For the public sector, that number dropped to 19%. This is an indicator of a society that is willing to compromise on values, and focuses on a short-term gain says Dr Claudelle von Eck.

Dr von Eck states that as South Africans, it’s important that we self-reflect and self-correct.

If we do start to work on self-correcting, we can turn that around and get to a value system that we need, to build the South African economy because the heart of it is ethics.

— Dr Claudelle von Eck, Chair of Anti-intimidation and Ethical Practices Forum

Dr Claudelle von Eck states that if we don’t understand ethics then South Africa’s future will be in distress.

First and foremost, it’s a matter of looking at where we went wrong, what are the markers in society that we need to address states the Chair of the Anti-intimidation and Ethical Practices Forum. An example she makes is that of the inequality curve in South Africa.

Ethics is not just about fraud and corruption and that worries me a lot that as South Africans, we tend to think of ethics as just fraud and corruption – it goes much deeper then that.

— Dr Claudelle von Eck, Chair of Anti-intimidation and Ethical Practices Forum

We need to ask, how do I personally contribute towards these aspects says Dr von Eck? She goes on to state that a sense of responsibility needs to be taken, and a reluctance to take ownership and personal accountability has resulted in scandals, looting and a lack of accountability.

Dr Claudelle von Eck states that social issues like ‘Black Tax’, place an enormous amount of pressure on people and we need to introspect issues like that.

This is a time for ethical leaders to help steer us back to a time when we understood that we are all connected to the collective, and that we need to ensure that our actions impact positively on the collective says the Chair of Anti-intimidation and Ethical Practices Forum.

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This article first appeared on CapeTalk : Can an ethical South Africa save itself?