Ethical considerations in the global logistics and supply chain industry
Ethical considerations in the global logistics and supply chain industry
Prof Joyendu Bhadury, the Dean of the College of Business and Economics at Radford University in Virginia, in the United States of America with the VUT delegation
Lerato Tsolo
Supply chain ethical risks continue to threaten various companies as well as investors around the world and are a core cause of business failure globally.
A public lecture running with the theme “Ethical Supply chain management in the public sector” was held on 31 October 2019. The public lecture was organised by the Department of Logistics.
The presenter was Prof Joyendu Bhadury, the Dean of the College of Business and Economics at Radford University in Virginia, in the United States of America.
Prof Bhadury mentioned that ethics in the public sector remains a worldwide problem.
“Money attracts corruption. About 20-25 % of the country’s GDP is spent by public sector officers in procurement. In South Africa each year, billions of Rands are spent on procurement,” he said.
Prof Bhadury shared anecdotes on the ethical lapses in public procurement in other countries with examples from Brazil (money laundering), India (telecom scandals), Malaysia (IMDB scandal), and the USA and Chechyna (unofficial tax).
“Some of the reasons why nations fail can be traced back to the origins of power, authoritarian governments, lack of political commitments, non-transparency and undemocratically elected governments,” Prof Bhadury added.
Concluding his presentation, he highlighted that at the end of the day it all comes down to the community, because a community at large has to value ethics, honesty and transparency and they have to use independent auditors as well as independent media to expose the ethical lapses prevailing.
He then gave people a chance to ask him questions before being given a token of appreciation for a wonderful and insightful lecture.