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CONFLICT OF INTEREST Updated Sunday, February 03, 2008 04:58 PM |
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The Nature of Conflict of Interest |
Examples of Conflict of Interest |
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As the page name suggests, an appointee has two interests - one duty to the government and the People, another interest - identical to the first - to himself. The idea of requiring public officials to the loyal to their duty to the public has arisen only recently in governments at any level - at any point in history. In the past, unless somebody powerful was done in by the conflict - there was no moral or ethical prohibition, let alone legal prohibition - against conflicts in interest. In reality, history illustrates that the very essence of the concept of "patronage" by a government was some sort of special benefit for the person who was appointed. Getting the job - the appointment - was patronage - but only in recent decades has the duty of the job been to serve the People, only, and to do it for a reasonable paycheck. Over time, appointees abused their appointments by official decisions which set their own interests against the interests of the People. The easy cases were where they raised their own paychecks. They gave non-competitive government contracts to family members, or to themselves. They at least gave the appearance of favoring themselves. The public rebelled eventually and legislatures passed specific civil and criminal statutory prohibitions against such conduct. The free public press was key in enabling this change and enforcing the law by publicizing the conduct of violators. Official enforcement of conflict of interest violations has been slow, spotty, and uneven. If enforcing officials and the person in conflict are on the same political team, prosecution is particularly difficult. Unfortunately - respect for conflict of interest legal standards is tough to establish. Appointees often believes they can wisely and objectively judge where their conflict exists - unfortunately that has been more than we - as the public - can expect of the human characcter.
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Veterans' Affairs Bonus Officials of the Veterans Affairs agency dispensed substantial bonus payments to themselves in 2006. Most of those receiving payments sat on the boards making the decision gave themselves major payments. This sort of payment is a clear conflict of interest decision even if the results were deserved. The matter could easily have legitimatised if outside or independent persons had been involved in the decision process. May 16 2007 Prying Wolfowitz out of the World Bank Paul Wolfowitz is trying to negotiate a deal to leave the World Bank gracefully - a concept which is absurdly silly in itself given Wolfie's conduct so far in all that mess. The core of the problem is Wolfowitz' decision to adjust his girlfriend's paycheck outside the rules - a clear conflict of interest. The deal is about made - but certainly not very pretty - nasty conflict example. May 17 2007 |
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