Part IV of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act con­tains a Code of Con­duct which func­tions as a mech­a­nism to help reg­u­late the be­hav­iour of all Per­sons in Pub­lic Life and per­sons ex­er­cis­ing pub­lic func­tions. The Code of Con­duct pro­motes pre­dictabil­i­ty and eth­i­cal stan­dards in the per­for­mance of du­ty for all those charged with car­ry­ing out pub­lic func­tions. Thus, pub­lic of­fi­cials are re­quired to treat all per­sons even-hand­ed­ly, not just the mem­bers of a par­tic­u­lar group.

The crit­i­cal out­come of this be­hav­iour is that any mem­ber of the pub­lic, who ac­cess­es a gov­ern­ment ser­vice, must re­ceive the same treat­ment re­gard­less of his/her race, colour, class, age, sex, per­ceived so­cial stand­ing or po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion. The Code of Con­duct es­tab­lish­es known guide­lines and bound­aries to as­sist pub­lic of­fi­cials in ad­min­is­ter­ing the pub­lic re­sources fair­ly and with trans­paren­cy.

Be­low are some prin­ci­ples of in­tegri­ty, as de­rived from the Code of Con­duct which out­line im­por­tant rules of be­hav­iour to guide de­ci­sion-mak­ing in the pub­lic sphere in or­der to stan­dard­ise the ser­vice de­liv­ered to and re­ceived by all cit­i­zens. Pub­lic Of­fi­cials must:-

Per­form their func­tions and ad­min­is­ter pub­lic re­sources in an ef­fec­tive and ef­fi­cient man­ner. Be fair and im­par­tial in ex­er­cis­ing their pub­lic du­ty. Af­ford no un­due pref­er­en­tial treat­ment to any group or in­di­vid­ual. Arrange their pri­vate in­ter­ests in such a man­ner so as to main­tain pub­lic con­fi­dence and trust in their in­tegri­ty. Not use their of­fice for the im­prop­er ad­vance­ment of their own or their fam­i­ly's per­son­al or fi­nan­cial in­ter­est or the in­ter­est of any per­son.

Not en­gage in any trans­ac­tion that is in­com­pat­i­ble with their of­fice, func­tion and du­ty. Not use pub­lic prop­er­ty or ser­vices for ac­tiv­i­ties not re­lat­ed to their of­fi­cial work. Not, ei­ther di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, use their of­fice for pri­vate gain. Not use pub­lic funds in dis­re­gard of the Fi­nan­cial Or­ders or oth­er reg­u­la­tions ap­plic­a­ble to such funds. Not ac­cept a fee, gift or per­son­al ben­e­fit that is con­nect­ed di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly with the per­for­mance of their du­ties.

Not use in­for­ma­tion gained in the ex­e­cu­tion of their of­fice and which is not avail­able to the gen­er­al pub­lic to fur­ther pri­vate in­ter­ests (in­sid­er in­for­ma­tion). Not use their of­fice to in­flu­ence a de­ci­sion made by an­oth­er per­son or pub­lic body to fur­ther pri­vate in­ter­ests (in­flu­ence). Keep all mat­ters of a con­fi­den­tial na­ture, con­fi­den­tial even af­ter sep­a­ra­tion from the ser­vice (con­fi­den­tial­i­ty).

Dis­close their in­ter­est and dis­qual­i­fy them­selves from any de­ci­sion-mak­ing process where there is a pos­si­ble or per­ceived con­flict of in­ter­est (con­flict of in­ter­est). The prin­ci­ples out­lined as well as the sanc­tions for fail­ure to ad­here to them will be fur­ther ex­plored in the fu­ture.

It must be re­mem­bered, how­ev­er, that Pub­lic Of­fi­cials must treat with a di­verse ar­ray of sit­u­a­tions while per­form­ing their of­fi­cial du­ties. Of­ten, even with the guid­ance of a writ­ten Code of Con­duct, do­ing the right thing is not clear and straight­for­ward.

The Act af­fords Per­sons in Pub­lic Life and per­sons ex­er­cis­ing pub­lic func­tions the op­por­tu­ni­ty to seek the opin­ion and rec­om­men­da­tions of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion on any mat­ter re­spect­ing their own oblig­a­tions un­der Sec­tion 36 of the Act. There­fore, when con­front­ed with thorny or dif­fi­cult is­sues, be­fore act­ing, per­sons may seek the opin­ion and rec­om­men­da­tions of the Com­mis­sion who will give an ad­vice that is priv­i­leged in­for­ma­tion and may be re­leased on­ly with the con­sent of the per­son mak­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion.