Ethical Decision Making for Administrators
Scenarios testing ethical decision-making abilities in administrative and governmental contexts under pressure
Questions
You are inquiring about the charges of corruption against a senior officer who was the predecessor of your boss. Your boss has called you and asked you to drop the charges and close the files. What will be your response?
- Comply with what your boss has asked you to do and close the file, thus earn his good will.
- Examine the charges and evidence against the officer and submit your report thus risking displeasure of your boss.
- Put up the file before your boss but leave the decision of continuing further inquiry, on him.
- Defer the decision on file hoping to take action when your boss changes is transferred from the present post.
The district in which you are a District Collector had been badly hit by flood. Immediate rescue and relief operations were launched by you which were appreciated by the people and also the higher authorities. Subsequently there have been charges of corruption against you and your team of officials in purchase of relief material for the flood victims. You had anticipated this and had taken permission of the higher authorities to purchase material from market without tendering for it. There is pressure on you for getting an independent inquiry conducted, specially against your subordinates. But some subordinates feel that this will demoralize them as they had put in a lot of hard work and now inquiry will cast aspersions on their integrity. What would you do?
- Allow an independent inquiry to be set up by the Commissioner of the District.
- Ask the officials of the Audit division to audit the accounts. Though this will not be an inquiry, it is likely to quell the demand for inquiry.
- Reject demand for any inquiry as you feel there was no corruption.
- Proceed on long leave till the matter gets settled.
There has been an acute famine in the district, of which you are the District Collector. You have ordered government officials to procure food grains from government godowns located in adjoining districts and make them available to the public through PDS shops. This work has to be done immediately at earliest, as there is acute scarcity of food and poor people can’t afford the very high food prices of the open market.
You have come to know that all truck operators have formed a cartel and are asking for double the usual transportation rate, in order to exploit the situation. This would push the food prices up and defeat your purpose of procurement of food grains from the government godowns. Which of the following options would you choose?
- Transport the food grains through the Railways, which may take 4-5 days for booking and consignment to reach.
- Report the matter to the higher authorities and await their directions.
- Threaten to invoke the provisions of law and have their licences cancelled.
- Try to bargain for a lower rate, begin the transportation of food grains at this rate and then explore alternative means of transport taking legal action.
As an editor of a leading newspaper you receive a complaint from a government officer, who claims that his name was wrongly dragged in a news report about a scam. He states that he was not posted in the concerned department during the period of the purported scam and joined it much later. He is anguished by the damage done to his reputation and threatens to take legal action. You verify facts from your news team and the government department concerned and find that indeed he was posted there much later. In such a situation you would;
- print a rejoinder in the next day’s newspaper regretting the mistake and offering apology.
- personally visit the person and apologise to him as apology in the newspaper is likely to tarnish the reputation of the newspaper built over the years.
- put pressure on him through informal but influential channels not to drag the issue further.
- take no action at present but wait for him to issue a legal notice.
You are a District Collector who has been requested by your counterpart in an adjoining district to allow flood relief camps to be operated, as that district had been hit by floods. You allowed such camps to be erected in areas under your jurisdiction. Further, you also contributed in provision of basic amenities to the flood victims.
Subsequently you receive complaints about theft and vandalism of property in areas around the camp. People are pointing fingers at the residents of the camp and want them to immediately return back to their homes as flood waters have abated. But the people in the camp are resisting this as roads leading to the district have been washed away and supply of food, medicine and other essential materials will not be restored immediately. In such a situation you would;
- ask the District Collector of the adjoining district to take back the people as their continued presence is creating law and order problem in areas around the camp.
- appeal to the residents to show compassion and understanding as they or anybody else might face such a calamity in future.
- direct the residents to file a complaint with the police.
- step up the vigil around the camp and direct the police to inquire into the incident.
You are an administrative authority who has received a petition from a poor worker, who has been thrown out of job and also not paid his full month’s pay. He was offered only half month’s pay which he refused to accept. He seeks your intervention in getting justice as he has been threatened by his employer, who is a contractor and an influential man in that area. What course of action would you adopt?
- Advise the petioner vide a letter, to file a complaint with the police.
- Call the petitioner in person and ask him to accept the fifteen days wage, as taking action against the contractor will be time taking.
- Recommend to the police authorities to register the petition as a complaint and take immediate action.
- Forward his petition to the local employment exchange for registering him for a job.
As a branch-head of a company, you receive a complaint from a female employee about sexual harassment from a senior colleague. The accused is heading an important project of the company and has been purportedly harassing her for the last few months. She is also willing to bring evidence on record and wants action to be taken against the accused, otherwise she would be compelled to quit her job. You would;
- Call the accused, warn him of administrative action, but request the female employee not to file a written complaint, as the accused is heading an important project.
- Ask the female employee to file a written complaint so as to call for an explanation/ take action against the accused. But this would affect timely completion of the project as the attention of the accused would get diverted to the sexual harassment issue.
- Request the female employee to file a written complaint after three months as the project would be getting completed by then.
- Permit the female employee to quit and save the project as well as the office from an embarrassing enquiry.
You are a senior officer in the Ministry of Environment. A file has come to you seeking environment clearance for a big industrial project in an ecologically sensitive zone. You have been requested by the project promoters as well as the political representatives of the region, to accord clearance on priority, as the project runs into several thousands of crores of rupees and has the potential of generating large number of employments and altering the economic landscape of the region.
On examining the proposal you find that it fully complies to the present norms of environment clearance. But you are aware that these norms were formulated four years ago. Besides, there is an environmental report of two NGOs presented to the Ministry about such ecologically sensitive regions, which are under consideration. Under such circumstances, which of the following course of action would you consider appropriate?
- Accord clearance to the project as it fulfills the present norms and would bring substantial economic benefits to the region.
- Reject the proposal as the project is in ecologically sensitive zone and the Minstry’s norms may have to be changed in light of the report of the NGOs.
- Recommend the proposal to be examined by a technical experts group with reference to environmental viability of the project in light of the concerns expressed by the NGOs in their reports. But, this may take a couple of months.
- Have a new environmental clearance norm prepared first. As this may take several months, until then hold all projects including this one, so as to show uniformity of approach and policy.
As an administrative authority in a region, you are overseeing several social welfare programmes. The most successful scheme pertains to education of the girl child, where the government has been distributing educational kits and monetary rewards to every girl child on successfully passing class Xth. The funds in this scheme have exhausted because of a larger than anticipated number of girls passing. Funds are left in employment generation programmes but they cannot be diverted without the permission of the highest administrative authority, which takes time to be sanctioned. In such a situation which of the following options would you exercise?
- As per suggestion of subordinates, raise fictitious bills under the head of any employment generation scheme, draw the funds from the treasury and use it for financing the educational kits and monetary rewards. After all this is also governmental fund which will be used for a good governmental scheme.
- Request for diversion of funds and pursue with the higher authorities for early sanction. But, this may take a couple of months.
- Promise to deliver the kits and monetary rewards next year to those who could not receive it this year.
- Express helplessness as funds have exhausted under this head and issue an appreciation certificate instead, to those who could not receive the kits and rewards.
You are a ‘vigilance officer’ of a government hospital which always faces acute shortage of beds for indoor treatment of patients. One day you receive a complaint from a patient that he has been denied admission in the cancer department of the hospital while the son of a hospital staff (also suffering from cancer) is being granted admission in the cancer department (on that very day). He pleads to you for intervention. On inquiry you find that there is only one bed vacant in the cancer department, while next vacancy will arise in 3-4 days time. What will be your preferred choice of action?
- Admit the staff’s son and recommend the complainant’s admission in another government hospital. This is because union problem will arise if the son of the staff is not given admission.
- Admit the complainant and recommend the staff’s son to another government hospital. This is because the complainant threatens to call media if he is denied admission.
- Deny admission to both as either way you foresee a problem.
- Seek the medical report and input about the urgency of admission of both. Admit the one needing immediate attention while ask the other to wait for 2-3 days.