Post on 26-Mar-2015
Peter Maina Gichangi
MIT8205: Business Ethics and Governance
Term Paper:
Social Justice In Kenyan Parastatals – KRA Case Review
Peter Maina Gichangi
FIT/ Msc. IT /060673
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Peter Maina Gichangi
Table of Contents
1 Introduction.......................................................................................3
2 Problem Statement............................................................................3
3 The Case...........................................................................................4
3.1 What is Social Justice?..............................................................4
3.2 Background of the KRA............................................................5
3.3 The KRA Work Place................................................................6
3.3.1 Remuneration....................................................................6
3.3.2 Benefits and perks.............................................................7
3.3.3 Career growth opportunities..............................................7
3.3.4 Sponsored trainings and seminars.....................................7
3.3.5 Performance recognition and awards................................8
4 Ethical and Governance Problems....................................................9
4.1 Natural Moral Law....................................................................9
4.2 Virtues.......................................................................................9
4.3 Subsidiarity................................................................................9
4.4 Stakeholder theory.....................................................................9
5 Problem Analysis............................................................................10
6 Conclusion......................................................................................11
7 References.......................................................................................12
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1 Introduction
After the Kenyan independence in 1963, Kenyans slowly started
assuming public offices in various capacities. Over time the larger
percentage of public offices were run by qualified locals. This marked a
radical change in the discrimination that was then rampant. This was
primarily racial discrimination where locals were less likely to get good
employment opportunities when pit against ‘whites’ and Asians. This
was considered to be ‘Kenyanisation’ of government structures and
services. This was seen as the beginning of equal opportunities to all and
was expected to reflect in government owned institutions through the
employment terms, additional perks and benefits, growth opportunities
among others.
More than forty seven years later, the anticipated equal opportunities in
government owned institutions still seem to be elusive.
2 Problem Statement
More than thirty seven years after independence, the social justice and
equity expected in state owned institutions seems yet to have been
achieved. Though racial based discrimination is no longer a concern,
other forms of social injustice have arisen. These have led to
dissatisfaction of some employees since they feel that there is a lack of
equity and justice.
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3 The Case
This paper is based on practices common within the Kenya Revenue
Authority (KRA) which may hinder social justice at the work place. It
will focus on the ethical and corporate governance aspects emanating
from these practices.
This review shall focus on the key areas listed below in an attempt to
identify basic conflicts and the fulfilment of social justice:
Remuneration
Benefits and perks
Career growth opportunities
Sponsored trainings
Sponsored professional seminars
Performance recognition and awards
Gender bias
Persons with disability
3.1 What is Social Justice?
For the purpose of this paper, Social Justice is defined as the just
distribution of resources, tools of work, rewards and opportunities to the
employees within an organisation. It borders on the principles of natural
moral law, equality and solidarity.
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3.2 Background of the KRA
Established in 1995 via an act of parliament for the primary purpose of
revenue collection, KRA is charged with the responsibility of managing
the tax framework within Kenya. The institution oversees
implementation of the taxation plans proposed by the Ministry. It is
further required to implement tax collection mechanisms that will collect
the revenue expected.
The KRA currently employs over four thousand staff across various
departments spread in multiple towns all over Kenya. These departments
include:
Income Tax Department
Customs and Excise Department
Value Added Tax Department
Registrar of Motor Vehicle Department
Support Departments
o Legal Affairs Internal Audit
o Research and Corporate Planning
o Management of Information Services
o Investigations
o Human Resource and Administration
o Finance
o Public Relations -now Corporate & Public Affairs
o Revenue Protection Services
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o Tax Programmes & New Business Initiatives
The KRA presents itself as an equal opportunity employer offering
opportunities for growth, development and job satisfaction.
3.3 The KRA Work Place
Across the various KRA offices, multiple and diverse work ethics are
practiced. The busiest offices are the KRA headquarters in Nairobi and
the Mombasa regional office. In the review carried out, similarities were
identified across most of the offices in regards to the various areas of
interest. The general findings are shown below.
3.3.1 Remuneration
KRA has a salary scale that is used to determine the remuneration of
employees. The Commissioner General is at Level 1 with the levels
increasing as seniority decreases. Level 1 is the most highly paid with the
commissioner having a salary of over Kshs. 1 million.
Through an appraisal program, employees are promoted (mostly based
on their performance) to the next level. This often calls for a new job
description, job enrichment (with additional roles) or even job rotation.
It was identified that some employees were not happy with the entire
remuneration packages and review process largely because of poor
adherence to processes. This caused great disparities between employees
performing the same tasks but who have been promoted in the past
without a change in roles or job description and without following
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performance merit. This has caused a lot of acrimony among employees
often to the extent that team work fails.
3.3.2 Benefits and perks
It was noted that the authority provides multiple and varied benefits and
incentives to its employees. However, great disparities were identified
where in some instances certain employees were awarded benefits while
their peers were not provided the same. The health insurance benefits are
a good example where some employees are given a broader cover while
their peers (at the same level) are given less. Bonuses were also
identified where in some instances some employees were awarded
bonuses while their counterparts were not.
This has created dissatisfaction, low productivity and corruption amongst
those who felt unfairly treated.
3.3.3 Career growth opportunities
The issue of growth opportunities at KRA caused passionate emotions
amongst most of the employees. It was generally felt that growth
opportunities were never fairly contested since the qualifications were
often tailored to suite a pre-determined candidate. It was generally felt
that the process was flawed and failed to follow the basic governance
principles expected.
This has created dissatisfaction and indifference among employees who
feel they cannot get a ‘god father’ to assist their growth.
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3.3.4 Sponsored trainings and seminars
As in many government institutions, sponsored trainings and seminars
arouse a lot of debate since they are viewed as opportunities to make
money – per diem. As such the competition among peers to attend
trainings is very high. In some instances, some managers arrange for
trainings for given employees and exclude others who are performing the
same tasks. The method of selection and identification of the employees
to attend the trainings is also not clear.
As a result, the process is marred in corruption as individuals attempt to
get themselves included in the trainings. Employees who often miss out
on these opportunities seek alternatives to make additional money from
their work. This leads to even more corruption.
3.3.5 Performance recognition and awards
Almost every year, KRA recognises its best performing staff at an
official function by giving them awards. The process of selection of best
performing staff is however not clear and often sees managers
nominating themselves for the awards.
As a result, the actual well performing employees loose moral causing
reduced productivity. Over time, these employees may seek
opportunities elsewhere.
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The above identified issues are the five key concerns that indicate
social justice is yet to be achieved within KRA and by extension
other parastatals.
4 Ethical and Governance Problems
The issues identified above reveal multiple ethical and governance
problems within KRA. These problems are explained below.
4.1 Natural Moral Law
Ethical problems around justice are evident from the issues identified
above ranging from sick-off requests so as to fulfil their personal duties,
false information about best performing employees among others.
4.2 Virtues
Ethical problems around virtues are exposed from the above issues where
employees are involved in corruption, favouritism, nepotism,
absenteeism among others.
4.3 Subsidiarity
In instances where employees are not involved in basic decisions such as
identifying the best performing employees, then the principle of
subsidiarity is not fully practiced. As such, most decisions are made at
senior management level, some of which are very basic thus making
them loose focus of the bigger picture.
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4.4 Stakeholder theory
It is clear from the findings above that the stakeholders within KRA have
not been fully appreciated. Their role, their plight and their impact on
KRA’s image and performance have been ignored. As such it would
seem more learning and incorporation of tenets from the stakeholder
theory are required within the organisation for proper transformation to
be achieved.
5 Problem Analysis
The impact of the social injustices at the work place cannot be ignored.
According to Cropanzano et al. (Cropanzano, Byrne, Bobocel, & Rupp,
2001), social injustices at the work place have been attributed to multiple
challenges facing organisations. Such challenges include reduced
productivity, reduced morale, indifference at the work place, reduced
enthusiasm, general dissatisfaction, intimidation, corruption, absenteeism
and abuse of organisation resources.
Some of these are evident as identified within KRA. Continued social
injustice within KRA as identified above would continue to cause
multiple problems to the organisation. These include:
Reduced enthusiasm, morale and productivity
This causes employees’ performance to be reduced.
Indifference at the work place
This causes slower turn-around times on basic activities.
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Corruption
This caused revenue loss to the authority.
Absenteeism
This causes reduced organisational performance causing failure
to meet objectives
Abuse of organisation resources
This causes an increase in operational costs for the authority
6 Conclusion
To combat the challenges identified above, the authority need to re-look
and further investigate social justice at its work place. Though it may not
manifest externally except in given instances, the impact of the concerns
around this are grave and will continue to affect the authority’s
performance in the long run.
The authority needs to focus in ensuring that the following corporate
governance and ethical aspects are fully incorporate in the organisation
as identified above:
Natural Moral Law
Virtues
Subsidiarity
Stakeholder theory
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Once these are inculcated in the organisation, social justice concerns will
be greatly reduced if not completed done away with.
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7 References
Barry, B. (2005). Why social justice matters. Polity.
Business Daily: - Opinion & Analysis |Address salary inequalities. (n.d.). . Retrieved April 5, 2011, from http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Opinion+++Analysis/Address+salary+inequalities/-/539548/1138696/-/bttmtb/-/index.html
Cropanzano, R., Byrne, Z. S., Bobocel, D. R., & Rupp, D. E. (2001). Moral Virtues, Fairness Heuristics, Social Entities, and Other Denizens of Organizational Justice. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 58(2), 164-209. doi:10.1006/jvbe.2001.1791
Cropanzano, R., Goldman, B., & Folger, Robert. (2003). Deontic justice: the role of moral principles in workplace fairness. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 24(8), 1019-1024. doi:10.1002/job.228
Kenya in Brief. (n.d.). . Retrieved April 6, 2011, from http://www.statehousekenya.go.ke/kenya.html
Mavericks Teacher Resources : Politics : Glossary. (n.d.). . Retrieved April 6, 2011, from http://www.glenbow.org/mavericks/teacher/english/thm_poli/glossary.html
Meindl, J., & Steensma, H. (1994). Justice in the workplace. Social Justice Research, 7(3), 189-195. doi:10.1007/BF02334830
Radical Alliance’ Priests Strike With Pickets. (1937). [[Pittsburgh Press]], p. 42.
Salaries & Kenya Pay. Government Accused of Discrimination | Staff-Kenya Jobs. (n.d.). . Retrieved April 5, 2011, from http://www.staff-kenya.com/wordpress/2009/10/11/salaries-kenya-pay-government-accused-of-discrimination/
Skarlicki, D. P., & Folger, R. (1997). Retaliation in the workplace: The roles of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice. Journal of applied Psychology, 82, 434–443.
Workplace Equality: Contemporary Social Justice in the Workplace, Page 2 of 2 - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com. (n.d.). . Retrieved April 5, 2011, from http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2664083/workplace_equality_contemporary_social_pg2.html?cat=31
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8 Appendices
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Turnitin Originality Report Social Justice In Kenyan Parastatals – KRA Case Review by Peter Gichangi From Term Paper (Business Ethics and Governance)
Processed on 04-06-11 5:13 PM EAT ID: 180122913 Word Count: 1775
Similarity Index18%Similarity by SourceInternet Sources:
9%Publications:
5%Student Papers:
13%sources:
14% match (student papers from 11/04/10)Submitted to Waikato University on 2010-11-04
22% match (Internet from 12/29/10)http://www.kra.go.ke/kra/krahistory.html
32% match (student papers from 08/30/10)Submitted to Northcentral on 2010-08-30
41% match (student papers from 02/24/10)Submitted to University of Maryland, University College on 2010-02-24
51% match (Internet from 10/18/10)http://pastel.paristech.org/5090/
61% match (student papers from 02/02/11)Submitted to Laureate Higher Education Group on 2011-02-02
71% match (student papers from 04/13/09)Submitted to CTI Education Group on 2009-04-13
81% match (student papers from 03/28/10)
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