Making Corruption Even More Impossible through the Appointments and Public Service Authority

The Appointments and Public Service Authority is one of three key Direct Government Institutions proposed to be established directly under the Government.¹ One of two key functions of this authority is to handle all major appointments in the country.

An elaborate and intricate process for managing appointments was proposed in the book The Tragedy Called Democracy in the 21st Century (2023) pp. 301 to greatly eliminate discretion or favoratism and thus corruption or nepotism in appointments to public offices, ensuring only the best minds control the various sectors and institutions.

The process included matching random jurors (a process for constituting which was discussed in the book) with applicants, in the vetting process for high offices.

To add to that process, we can tighten it even further by not only “randomizing” the vetting process but actually making it blind; a goal which was already hinted at in the comparison that was made between the process and script-marking in external examinations at basic or primary and secondary school levels.

The parameters or basis for determining which candidate is more qualified than or preferable to another for a role will not be found on the face or personal identity of the candidate in most cases, unless at the risk of prejudice. Such choices, if they are objective, will boil down to factors that can be verified without seeing or hearing the candidate in person. They include factors such as experience, expected responses to given situations, aptitude, creativity and ability to think on one’s feet, technical competence among others.

To further and, even more, completely eliminate the risk of prejudice, favoratism or any elaborate scheme of corruption still possible in the system as previously proposed, it is now further proposed that:

1. Candidates, when matched with jurors, may have their names redacted.
2. Candidates would sit in a room separate from the jury.
3. Candidates, during vetting would only communicate through text or some other audio medium (text to speech) with the jurors, with the help of technologies presently available to us. The jurors would therefore make their judgement based on responses only without knowing who the candidates are.
4. Candidates may, however, be allowed to see and hear the jurors by means of a TV screen or a one-way mirror.

If other qualities such as honesty (via body language), temperament and eloquence still need to be judged, this may be done separately by a different juror or equipment behind the scenes – in the same room with the candidate, or from behind a one-way mirror too.

While the intricate system already proposed in the book above makes it practically impossible for appointments-related corruption and other abuses and failures to persist under the new system, the proposals now made would make it even more so, literally IMPOSSIBLE under any circumstance whatsoever for such vices to even be attempted – if a country wants to go the extra mile or for an overkill to tighten up its system.

These are all strategies that can be adopted at little to no extra overheads, while still inuring incalculable benefits to the country in terms of not only solving such corruption and administrative failures but in availing the best minds to society, to solve its problems.

Footnotes:

1. Not to be confused with current ideas of what the government is. Learn why.