Increasing The Effectiveness Of Security And Defence Through Civil Servants In Uganda

Introduction

Uganda seeks to make their defence and security operations more effective and efficient. We expound on the role that the civil service can play in making this a reality. Increased operation of the civil service in line with the set Codes of Conduct and Ethics would ensure that only the best and fittest individuals get to join the defence and security departments. That would go a long way in making them more effective and efficient. Many a time’s selection for recruitment is on the basis of an individuals` godfathers and their abilities to bribe their way to recruitment. This paper seeks to change this.

Contextual overview

The main role played by security and defence establishments and the civil service is the upholding of constitutional values and the further protection of the State`s security and general interests as defined by the law (Rukavishnikov, Vladmir and Michael Pugh, 2018). Whenever there is undue politicisation, civil servants and military personnel are put in difficult relationships with their political masters which threatens their impartiality and divides their loyalty. The impartial performance of armed forces and civil service is only possible when there are strict separations between administrative duties and politics and between military and politics. This is quite hard in countries like Uganda where their politicians want to meddle in almost every other activity. Rules that are clear and accepted universally should be put in place which determine the positions that belong to the military and civil service and which ones belong to the civil service. To prevent infiltration of the military and civil servants by politicians and other meddling persons, the military and civil servants should have a set Code of Conduct and Ethics that guide their operations.

The cabinet in Uganda is helped by a vast cadre of civil servants. These civil servants are explicitly mandated to act independently and in the interests of the general public. Civil servants, are characteristically, more insulated from politics than the members of the executive and that reduces their likelihood of bowing to political pressure which would eventually, lead them to ignoring and even downplaying constitutional rights. These implies that civil servants have the potential of serving as counterweights to different political forces in the processes of constitutional implementation. While, it is not debatable that the civil servants in Uganda, ultimately serve the government of the day, there is proper documentation of their influence on policy processes (Harris et al., 2018). Civil servants play crucial roles in the building and further consolidation of functional democracies on the basis of the establishment of institutions that are effective and that respect the rule of law while also responding to the needs of the populations and being accountable to civilian authorities and the general populations.

Security sectors that are transparent, accountable and governed appropriately are linchpins of democratic processes (Vanhoonacker, Dijkstra and Mauer, 2010). A very important role is played by the oversight of civil servants by the articulation and subsequent communication of security needs together with a populations interests to the makers of policies. This is achieved through the monitoring of state security services by the civil service. When security forces are not regulated properly and when they fail to be accountable, increments in insecurity cases are bound to come about which goes a long way in undermining good genuine efforts of governance. Additionally, security sectors that are not governed democratically could easily be used for partisan ends and they could even lead to monopoly of the state in the use force to unravel. Some of the ways to ensure that the security sector upholds the rule of law and the rule of law is through oversighting different programmes, structures, policies, reform processes and even actions of the security sector.

The security sector comprises of;

Core security actors – This include members of the armed forces, security and intelligence services, customs authorities and border guards.

Bodies involved in management and oversight of security – these include parliament together with its different committees tasked with legislation, the executive, foreign affairs and internal affairs, financial management bodies and security advisory bodies.

Rule of law institutions – this brings under one roof the ministry of security, services involved in investigation and prosecution of criminals, human rights commissions and traditional justice systems.

Non-statutory security forces – these include liberation armies, private bodyguard units, guerrilla armies, political party militias and guerrilla armies.

Policy recommendations

The delivery of sustainable capabilities in defence outputs require the deployment of civil services across different defence functions who have to be trained appropriately. There are roles within defence that would definitely benefit from the free flow of military and civil personnel. The defence human resource department has civil staff who work towards ensuring that the departmental personnel have the right capabilities of supporting the different aspects of a department`s businesses fully. They are involved in activities like the development of recruitment and selection procedures, training and development, promotion policies, equality policies and the defences terms and conditions of employment. Planning and ensuring that the right people are in the right place at the right time is the key objective.

The code of conduct of these civil servants needs to revolve around the following components;

Bribery – There should be explanations that are clear and succinct on what entails bribery. Further, there should also be instructions on the right way to act and how one should go about dealing with situations where they are offered bribes. There should also be procedures for official bribery reporting and the way to go about notifying external prosecutors.

Hospitality and gifting – clear definitions should be put in place for identification of the gifts that are acceptable and the rules for their acceptance. There should be guidelines that are practical with real-life examples. It is also important that there be procedures that are clear which civil servants should follow whenever they are confronted with ethical dilemmas.

Conflicts of Interest – there should be guidance that is clear that can be used by officials to judge on the existence of a conflict. There should also be clear guidelines on the procedures that need to be followed for disclosure of potential conflicts and for the resolving of the conflicts. The codes of conducts success is largely dependent on those mechanisms that are put in place for reporting and also for consultative purposes, an establishments general approach to the importance of behaving in an ethical manner and why it is important to flog behaviours that are not proper (Barratt, 2016). There needs to be effective internal controls within the civil service in Uganda and compliance programs also need to be in place together with guidelines that clearly prohibit behaviours that are not ethical.

Codes of Conduct whose focus is on the provision of a firm basis for disciplinary action would only be set to succeed through the development of cultures whose focus is on narrow compliance with rules for avoidance of punishment (Quaye, 2019). The following principles should be followed;

• Serving public interests – it is expected that civil servants strengthen the trust accorded to the government. This can be achieved through the demonstration of high standards of competence professionally, effectiveness, efficiency and seeking to advance the public good.
• Integrity – the decision making and actions of civil servants should entirely be to the best interests of the public.
• Transparency – civil servants should use their resources and powers for the good of the citizens.
• Fairness – decision making and actions of civil servants have to be fair.
• Responsiveness – civil servants have to serve the Government`s legitimate needs and its interests.
• Efficiency and effectiveness – civil servants have to obtain the best value for any public assets entrusted on them.

Reforms of the security sector have the potential of enhancing the security of the state and also the security of citizens, bringing peace and fostering economic prosperity for everybody.

• Civil servants make contributions to defence and security that are significant and distinctive. The working together of civil servants and military personnel improves the effectiveness with which different activities within defence are carried out.
• Development of the ethics of civil servants to increase their transparency and make them more efficient. To achieve this, it would be necessary to anticipate specific threats within the public sector to integrity and ethics standards. It is necessary to pay attention to systemic threats across Uganda that have the potential of weakening the adherence of civil servants to public sector ethic values that are core and their commitment to proper governance and for purposes of adequately preparing the necessary responses, politically and also from a management perspective.
• Strengthening of the ethical competence of civil servants and those mechanisms that support professional ethics also need to be strengthened. It is necessary to undertake fresh techniques that are capable of institutionalising decision-making that is competent from an ethical perspective, disinterested government advice and an ethical culture ultimately. The ethical culture needs to be capable of supporting self-discipline, professional responsibility and further supporting the rule of law.
• Development of those administrative practices that are capable of promoting integrity and ethical values. Effective implementation is required for fresh proposed pro-ethics laws. For instance, the entrenchment of the ethical values that are set of in the Code of Ethics of the Civil Service would require performance management techniques that are effective.

The civil service would oversee that the recruitment processes of the security and defence departments are objective and based on merit. This would go a long way in ensuring that appointments are transparent and prompt and the persons recruited. That helps to ensure that the security and defence departments are both accountable and efficient. The merit principle should always be followed in the security and all appointments need to be made on the basis of assessments of competency and an individual’s ability to perform their tasks. Selecting the best person available should be the main intention of appointments.

The civil servants in Uganda, especially those in the security sector could call for reform of security and defence in Uganda. The aim of reform of the security sector would be to ensure that effective, efficient and accessible public services are provided by defence, security and justice institutions. Through security reforms, these institutions are better placed to respond to citizen’s justice and security needs and also the needs of the state. The state should operate in line with good governance principles and should also respect and uphold human rights. The state should also be accountable to both citizens and different civilian authorities through oversight and control mechanisms that are effective.

Practically, reform of the security sector should be above all other political processes that are shaped by national security visions that take into account the views and needs of different parts of societies. It requires more than just technical and administrative improvements in institutions that are badly designed fundamentally, arbitrarily and oppressively. Entire systems of security governance, need to be rethought and thoroughly evaluated to determine whether they best reflect the exact nature of threats to given populations. This has to be done with a proper understanding of the resources that are actually available to the state. Security sector reform presents different actors in civil service with opportunities that are valuable for leading national dialogues on the issue of security and on the mechanisms and institutions that would guarantee security effectively.

Complete reform of the security sector can only come about when any efforts aimed at improvement of the sector manage to improve its effectiveness and accountability effectively within the contexts of democratic and civil oversight. At the same time, the rule of law should always be respected and every other individual’s human rights should always be upheld. Approaches that are exclusively materialistic do not qualify as reforms. These are such activities as putting up infrastructure, purchase of equipment and even mere training of security and defence forces.

The following strategies are advanced for making the civil servants more transparent;

• Implementation of laws that are effective that require civil servants to give proper reasons for any official decisions they make.
• Adoption of approaches to management that encourage civil servants to deal positively with any unethical practices they come across and corruption.
• Establishment of protection laws for whistle-blower’s for protection of appropriate disclosures that are in the interest of the public from wrongdoing by officials.
  • If whistleblowing is to be an effective tool in the fight against corruption, there has to be adequate definition of those activities that can be reported, the procedures to be followed need to be clear and any disclosure that is made in good faith has to be protected.
  • There has to be a clear definition of those forms of conduct that have to be reported which should include the abuse of public office and misuse of official information, mismanagement of public funds and coercing others to make disclosures.
  • There needs to be clarity on the authority to whom misconduct is reported to.
  • Legal protection for those individuals who report breaches in good faith in line with set procedures.
• Carrying out ethic audits from time to time for identification of factors that risk the integrity of different processes like financial management, merit based promotion and recruitment of security and defence personnel and protective measures that are not discriminatory.
• Offering training in Ethics Codes rationale, application of management practices that are ethical and proper use of official power. Reform and management of the security and defence departments is quite fundamental and should be characterised by a greater separation of managerial and political responsibilities with the focus of managers being on delivery of services.
• Redress procedures for internal and external complaints that are effective.

Conclusion

Major differences are brought about by codes of conduct and other different voluntary guidelines because most of the personnel who serve in military and security sectors are individuals who take pride in offering their nation service. It is part of the military culture to honour such establishments. While some forms of ethos are quite evident than others, there are many forms of corruption (Pelizzo and Omarov, 2019). For avoidance of instances of omission and commission, it is necessary to put in place statements that are clear on what is expected from every individual, what is acceptable, what is not acceptable and how conflicting situations should be dealt with. Global adherence to the standards of behaviour that are established would go a long way in supporting that.

Bibliography

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• Pelizzo, R. and Omarov, M., 2019. Ethical values and the perception of corruption. Journal of Governance, 4(1), pp.68-83.
• Quaye, C.O.N.S.T.A.N.C.E., 2019. Culture and Enforcement of Code of Ethics in the Ghanaian Civil Service: Experiences from the Head Office of the Ministry of Health (MOH) (Doctoral dissertation, University of Ghana).
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