Mkhwanazi broke the silence

This was published in TimesLive on 17 July 2025

The General Mkhwanazi press conference will be remembered as a pivotal moment when the silence surrounding the experiences of appointed officials at the hands of elected officials was broken. The relationship between elected and appointed officials is fundamental to making democracy work and ensuring nations remain competitive. Translating political objectives from governing parties into state programmes relies on capable officials committed to faithfully implementing the lawful policies of the current government. 

 

Those appointed in the public service are undeniably the intellectual backbone of the state. Their tenure often outlasts that of elected officials, and they serve in the public sector out of a sense of vocation. They are expected to conduct themselves as career professionals, upholding their profession's norms, standards, and laws. The normative framework of public service places significant responsibilities on them as career public servants. They represent the ultimate administrative accountability and are the last line of defence for all government actions and transactions. 

 

Appointed officials confront a complex ethical dilemma as custodians of public authority. They must balance the legality of state actions with the ethical requirements of acting lawfully, a task that should not be underestimated. In policing, which deals with criminality, the interests of the underworld often reflect the diverse active elements within the criminal justice system. The institutional power, monopoly on violence, and the authority to coerce and administer punishment to criminals, embedded within the policing phase of the criminal justice system, make those wielding command-and-control powers attractive targets for criminal syndicates.

In state capture politics, institutions and individuals that matter all hold power. The focus is on the durability of the entire system. Historically, this has led to gangsters ruling themselves as part of the government. In this process, politics have adapted to thrive under highly irregular, dysfunctional, fragile, and failed or failing regimes, so these governments remain consistent refuges for unlawfulness. In such democracies, politics occurs against the backdrop of power sanctified by lawlessness. Balancing these roles has created the most noise, while silence by professionals in the system reveals the underlying causes of dysfunction and poor service.

As part of this community of practice, General Mkhwanazi is just the tip of the iceberg. The discontent and its consequences in the community are like cancer. A thorough examination of the reasons for public service dysfunction in areas already regulated by professional bodies, codes of practice, and internationally recognised standard operating procedures reveals an inconvenient silence which chokes state capability. It is illogical that appointed officials, most of whom are trained in their professions and have chosen public service as a career, are nonetheless found to be overseeing widespread chronic dysfunction. 

 

The Mkhwanazi saga is a compelling case study that should concern all of us as public service beneficiaries. When viewed through this lens, the unregulated relationship between appointed and elected officials should urgently prompt a reassessment of how public management sciences are taught and learned. We must begin to envision and scrutinise the extent of the crisis in other public service areas. To what extent are city engineers, planners, treasury officials, state security officers, army generals, and legal advisors ignored when they contribute from their professional domains? 

 

South Africa has many court cases in which officials are maliciously kept in court because they refuse to carry out unlawful instructions. Some face threats to their lives, and their professional reputation suffers because of their actions. Sometimes, a not-guilty verdict generates politically sponsored energy to search for and find guilt. Innocence has become political in the public service if those elected have instructed that guilt should be the outcome. General Mkhwanazi's breaking of silence echoes the rejection of what has become normalised, depending on one's view of the powerful. 

 

The general's rant or whistleblower actions have highlighted how the impact of the actions and decisions of elected officials, even in their private capacity, in government, is always in the ethics realm. Being a public representative means surrendering your private life to society. The overall credibility of being a minister depends on society's perception of you, not how you see yourself. Unfair or otherwise, who you associate or affiliate with is one of the elements used to evaluate your judgment as a leader. 

A morally intelligent leader will always be able to distinguish right from wrong, as defined by universal principles. Knowing what to do and how to respond in ethically challenging situations is not enough without the skill to do the right thing every time you are in the company of the wrong. This is why the responsibility of leadership includes the willingness to accept accountability when things go wrong. The verdict is still out on the entire executive authority of the country. Establishing a commission of enquiry creates a platform for the truth about our now chronic malfeasance to have a relationship with what the law provides as remedial actions.