At the recently-concluded Unashamedly Ethical Conference (UEC), 190 individuals signed pledges to commit themselves to uphold ethics, values and clean living in their personal lives, businesses and other spheres of influence. 

They signed the pledges while participating in the conference which was held over the Labour Day weekend at Sidang Injil Borneo Kuala Lumpur (SIBKL). 

The signatories also joined hands with the worldwide prayer movement, Global Day of Prayer (GDOP) to popularize the “Unashamedly Ethical (UE)” movement which is aimed at getting people to stand united and say “NO” to bribery, collusion and corruption.

The UE movement was founded by South African businessman, Graham Power. The Labour Day conference was initiated by the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship (NECF) under its Prayer Commission and Nation Building Agenda. 

“Corruption is one of the social ills preventing nation building,” said Eugene Yap, NECF’s executive secretary for research. “UE’s anti-corruption campaign deals with this.”

Power was among the three main speakers at the conference, together with Dr Dion Forster, a market-place minister and academic, and Steve Johnstone, International Coordinator of Unashamedly Ethical. 

All three are from Cape Town, South Africa, where UE was started in 2006.

Three workshops catering to pastors and church leaders, businessmen, as well as youth and young adults were conducted at the conference. 

Among the panel speakers invited to conduct the workshops were Transparency International Malaysia President,Datuk Paul Low, Director of Marketplace Ministries Studies at Malaysia Bible Seminary, Dr Mark Lovatt, Associate Director of Training at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, (Asia-Pacific) I’Ching Thomas, and Senior Pastor of Skyline SIB (Kota Kinabalu), Dr Phillip Lyn.

The workshops taught how Malaysians could make an impact in their own communities by standing against the currents of unethical practices.

UE has three stages of implementation. The first is a challenge to sign a pledge, committing to “good values, ethics and clean living” and is called the UE Covenant Campaign. 

The person or business which signs the pledge will be automatically registered on an online directory of individuals and businesses dedicated to this cause and he/she and the business become part of a larger community dedicated to ethical practices. This is the second stage.

Anyone found engaged in unethical practices will be suspended from the list. In the third stage, an accountability system set in place is facilitated by ombudsmen who will hold all signatories answerable and review any complaints against any of the signatories.

The 190 signatures collected at the UE conference in Kuala Lumpur is in addition to 1850 similar pledges made by participants of a Methodist Churches Conference in Sibu, Sarawak on May 1, where Power also spoke.  

Another 60 pledges were also made at a businessmen’s meeting in Petaling Jaya on May 3. More are expected at an UE conference currently on-going in Penang, with over 200 participants.

“UE will definitely create an impact in this nation as people make a stand against bribery and corruption. My hope is that these values will soon become infused into our society,” said GDOP Malaysia chairman Looi Kok Kim.

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