Solution To The Professional Ethics Challenge for October!

Anonymous Author

Brief Statement of the Situation

As you recall, last month we started running an article that outlined an ethical dilemma that a professional geoscientist may encounter during the practice of their profession. In case No. 1, an oil company with concessions in an African country had exploration drill equipment, camp facilities and supplies sitting in the government customs yard. The local senior customs official indirectly suggested that a “consideration” in cash be made to ensure the equipment was released in a timely manner. Last month we posed the following question.

Question

Which of the following ethical routes should the professional geoscientist follow?

A. Refuse to pay as per company ethical guidelines and notify various government ministers to apply pressure. Action sends a message to officials that bribes will not be tolerated now or in future.

B. Pay the fee and stop wasting shareholders money. Assume the fee is just part of doing business and is the cultural/ethical norm in that country

Solution

The geoscientist in charge of the project turned the request for “consideration” into actual fee for services rendered. The oil company offered to hire an individual from the same tribal group as the customs official at going rates. This individual, who would become an employee of the oil company, would handle all paperwork for this and all future customs transactions and ensure timely release of equipment and supplies. The employee would also handle other non-customs related duties for the oil company. The proposal was agreed to and an individual was hired from the tribal group based on his ability.

Decision was rationalized as follows:

1.The situation was converted to a fee for services where a salary was paid to an individual who was performing legitimate services of filling out customs paperwork for the company using local labour.

2.The decision dovetails into the local cultural/ethical norms of property possession.

Question: Was this an ethical solution?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wanted: Ethical cases regarding incomplete disclosure, problems with conflicting test data results, insufficient information with which to draw stated conclusions, pressure to rewrite conclusions or any others that you can think of that affect geoscientists. Authors will remain anonymous. Articles to be published in future issues of Field Notes.

For more information on APGO, please contact info@apgo.net

Delivery Notice: This newsletter is issued 10 times per year to all APGO members. Non-members may also subscribe and receive the newsletter with access to non-member-only content. For more information, please see www.apgo.net.

Field Notes is published by APGO and is edited by Wendy Diaz, P.Geo. If you have comments or wish to contribute material to this newsletter, please contact Wendy Diaz, P.Geo., Crystal Spekking, Northern Ontario Communications Officer or Oliver Bonham, P.Geo., Executive Director/Registar.

Copyright 2004, Association of Professional Geoscientists of Ontario (APGO)