A paper today noted that
over a quarter of city employees feel like they’ve been pressured into
compromising their ethics and values.
Further, 50% feel they cannot report misconduct without fear of
retaliation! That’s a staggering
statistic, because it speaks to huge degree of fear and points to a significant
problem with corruption. Not
surprisingly, the city has been rocked with scandals of fraud, harassment,
slothful work habits and massive rates of absenteeism. In fact, recently they’ve rehired a number or
employees who were caught red-handed (some clocking a full day for literally
minutes of work, others stealing city goods).
The regional government
over this same city has finally admitted (after a year of denials) that they
relocated a massive infrastructure project strictly for political reasons,
costing their citizens of over a billion dollars needlessly. A spokesperson for the government was quoted
last week, saying that it’s really not that big a deal. A neighboring city’s
mayor freely cavorts with known drug dealers, admits to a significant binge
drinking habit and smoking crack cocaine while on the job – and he keeps his
job!
You might think I’m talking
about a city in a developing country, or some banana republic that is barely
off the ground in the third world. Actually, I’m talking about Hamilton and
Toronto, two of Ontario’s largest cities!
A province over, the heads of twenty-seven (27) cities were named in a
corruption scandal this year.
You would think that with
such pathetic mismanagement of citizen resources the various governments would
be focused on stemming corruption and shoring up public trust. Instead, yesterday the Ontario government
called for a massive tax increase to fuel even more spending.
Is the problem really a lack
of money, or is the problem a lack of ethics?
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