The African Tradition and the Nexus Between Public Sector Ethics and Culture: A Critical Analysis

Globalisation of public service delivery practices must overcome cultural and ethical barriers in their diversity. The pervasive Christian gospel and Islamic religion are believed to be concerned more in spirituality and less concerned with governance and political systems. The objective of this study is to expound the dilemma facing an ethical public service delivery system and to suggest possible solutions. The research methodology is a qualitative approach employed through content analysis. Findings indicate that for African states, alternative public service delivery is a question of choice by those wielding power, authority and political will. The study provides ethical initiatives to accommodate such diversity in building public sector ethics and culture. Simply relaying public service delivery strategies deemed successful in other states may not necessarily translate into success due to some ethical and cultural variations. What obtains is that, states that claim to be faith based or to carry religious ethical practices sometimes lead way ahead of others in unethical administrative practices. The contribution of the study is an additional item to the list of factors militating against effective service delivery and lack of public sector cultural ethics. This phenomenon should be tackled head-on so that service delivery is not compromised.