Ethical Integrity in Systematic Corruption in Public Procurement of Uganda

Purpose- On public procurement and corruption, there is enough literature. However, conceptual research that examines public procurement corruption from the perspective of ethical integrity is scarce. This paper seeks to examine systemic corruption toward a corrupt-free public procurement system via the prism of ethical integrity using the case of Uganda.
Design/methodology/approach- Using an umbrella review, the paper does a comprehensive review by methodologically compiling and evaluating numerous systematic reviews and meta-analyses on corruption in relation to ethical integrity. It was applied to deal with the growing quantity of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in the literature on public procurement philosophically.
Findings- According to the results of the philosophical reflection, the systemic corruption that plagues public procurement systems can be eliminated by enforcing the ethical integrity principle at both the individual and organizational levels. Adhering more rigidly to the ethical integrity principles appears to be the best strategy to stop corruption in public procurement.
Originality/value- The role of ethical integrity in the struggle against corruption in the public procurement system has received little if any, attention in research. Accordingly, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study of its sort to analyze the part that ethical integrity plays in public procurement corruption. This paper provides a substantial addition even if it needs to be empirically assessed on a bigger scale given that employees can rely on ethical integrity for the bulk of public procurement reasons, which regrettably has generally attracted insufficient literature.