The Tendering Fraud Environment – Part II

Departmental Acceptance

Departmental culture is a factor, which both contributes to the opportunity for corrupt action and aids in the continuation of such action. Aspects of departmental culture conducive to fraud include:

Unclear messaged about what is acceptable

When a department or procurement agency does not clearly specify what is acceptable, there is more scope for employee deviance, including fraud. For instance,  the definition of bribery or conflict of interest may not have been sufficiently worked out in terms of the operation of the particular department, leaving scope for employees initiative to redefine what is personally acceptable.

Attitude of colleagues

What attitude of co-workers affects the willingness of an employee to act in an unethical way as well as the person’s willingness to report Fraud.

Unlikelihood of Detection

Since it is often the employees themselves who are in the best situation to know what is going on, and agency is unlikely to detect procurement fraud if it is does not have in place appropriate reporting mechanisms. An employee is unlikely to use the reporting system if it is known the management has failed to take affective action on such matters in the past.

 Lack of Leadership and support

Messages about the importance of ethical behavior are not likely to be accepted by workers where the head of the department or senior management is seen to be acting in a way which can be perceived as unethical. Management must be seen to be abiding by correct practices themselves.