Towards instilling ethics in African business and public service: the case of Kenya

Abstract

This article discusses post independence governance and corruption challenges in Africa. In addition, this article explores the development of business ethics and good governance in Africa, with a particular emphasis on Kenya. As recently as January 2004, the World Economic Forum still presented Africa’s economies as performing poorly since the 1970s with per capita incomes 10% lower than what they were in the 1980s. Its GDP growth was shown to have been negative throughout the 1990s at regional levels, and only slightly improved in South Africa (Taylor et al., 2003 p. 3-7). Historical, structural, and ideological factors have been used to explain this lack of economic growth. Africa is materially poor and it continues to experience many difficulties: sometimes severe droughts and other times floods; political upheavals and conflicts in countries such as the Sudan and Somalia; the genocides in Rwanda and Burundi; endemic diseases such as Malaria and now AIDS; and massive unemployment.