Sadly, it is a common strategy for organisations to seek to protect their brand or ‘upright image’ by leaning on opacity. I remember a complaint lodged to my office as Public Protector by a former councillor who had been dismissed by his party for whistleblowing to the media about what he regarded as corruption by the chairperson of his political branch.
confuse “unquestionable loyalty” with “unquestioning loyalty”. The reaction by the Executive and Parliament to the opulent and irregular expenditure of a quarter of a billion rand on aesthetical improvements to former President Jacob Zuma’s private homestead in Nkandla is an example of a mixture of a clumsy attempt at brand protection and misplaced loyalty.
The wrongdoing, which was eventually confirmed by the Public Protector, involved rushed foreclosures on council debtors with small debts, then auctioning their land or other immovable property for a song, with the council debt collector and lawyer’s business partner buying such properties, reselling them at market value and making enormous profit.
The result was an epic tongue lashing by the Constitutional Court in a seminal judgement delivered by Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng in the EFF v the Speaker of the National Assembly. Needless to say, the brand was dented significantly.
When it came to his own accountability as a state functionary, Mandela resolutely sought no special treatment. In the end though, the brand suffered damage not because of the whistle-blowing but because of the failure to arrest apparent corruption. Sometimes it’s a mixture of brand protection and misplaced loyalty. Misplaced loyalty is the kind of loyalty that Oliver Tambo reportedly referred to as “unquestioning loyalty”. He is said to have advised his subordinates to give his organisation’s leaders unquestionable loyalty but not to
68 | Public Sector Leaders | July 2021
When it came to his own accountability as a state functionary, Mandela resolutely sought no special treatment. He was willing to comply fully even if the experience appeared humiliating. This was the case when he was personally hauled before Pretoria High Court and presented himself for alleged interference in rugby administration. His philosophy in this regard is apparent in his globally celebrated assertion that: “Even the most benevolent of governments are made up of people with all the propensities for human failings. The rule of law as we understand it consists in the set of conventions and arrangements that ensure that it is not left to the whims of individual rulers to decide on what is good for the populace.
The administrative conduct of government and authorities are subject to scrutiny of independent organs. “This is an essential element of good governance that we have sought to have built into our new constitutional order. An essential part of that constitutional architecture is those state institutions supporting constitutional democracy. Amongst those are the Public Protector, the Human Rights Commission, the Auditor-General, the Independent Electoral Commission, the Commission on Gender Equality, the Constitutional Court and others. “It was to me never reason for irritation but rather a source of comfort when these bodies were asked to adjudicate on actions of my government and office and judged against it. One of the first judgments of our Constitutional Court, for example, found that I, as President, administratively acted in a manner they would not condone. From that judgment my government and I drew reassurance that the ordinary citizens of our country would be protected against abuse, no matter from which quarters it would emanate. Similarly, the Public Protector [Ombudsman] had on more than one occasion been required to adjudicate in such matters.” Mandela refused to behave like an absolute monarch or pharaoh whose actions are beyond public scrutiny. It is said that the fish rots
