How SA’s public service failures were unmasked

THE Madlanga Commission and Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee on the KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi’s allegations have done the country a grim favour: they have stripped away the veneer of respectability from our public service and shown us the rot beneath.

- NCO DUBE

What is unfolding in those hearings was not the odd lapse or a few bad apples. It was a pattern. A culture of mediocrity, patronage and protection that has been normalised at the highest levels of state power.

We are watching senior officials and political appointees stumble through testimony, offering “I don't recall” after “I don’t know’, producing no documents when pressed, checking phones in the witness box and, in some cases, contradicting sworn statements. Former municipal managers, ministers’ chiefs of staff and senior police leaders are exposed not only for poor answers but for a deeper failure: an inability or unwillingness to account for decisions that affect lives, livelihoods and the rule of law.

Memory loss strategy

The Madlanga Commission was meant to be a sober exercise in accountability. Instead, it has become a theatre of evasions.

Former Ekurhuleni city manager Dr Imogen Mashazi’s testimony was a masterclass in indifference. Faced with questions about procurement irregularities and ignored recommendations, she scrolled her phone, repeated “I don’t recall”, and failed to produce documents. This was not just embarrassing; it was symptomatic of a public service where accountability is optional.

Brown Mogotsi’s appearances were equally revealing. Commissioners labelled him a “professional liar”, yet his testimony mattered because it exposed the informal networks that orbit power. His contradictions and evasions showed how unreliable intermediaries are used to muddy investigations and shield those who matter.