The controversy about higher education minister Nobuhle Nkabane’s attempted appointments to the Seta board should have sounded the alarm in every corridor of higher education, the civil service and organised business. Instead, what we have largely heard is silence — strategic, cautious and complicit.
As a recent academic, invested in ethical leadership and institutional reform, I am struck by the contradiction that now hangs heavily over our sector: we teach integrity in lecture halls; but too often whisper when confronted with ethical failures in the real world, especially when those failures emanate from the corridors of power.
Let us be clear: the sector education and training authority (Seta) board fiasco is more than a procedural mishap; it is a microcosm of a wider crisis in governance. Public boards, whether in education, healthcare, state-owned enterprises or local development agencies, hold immense power over budgets, appointments and policies that shape everyday lives. Yet far too often these boards operate in opacity, are driven by political patronage and lack the ethical oversight required by their mandates.
Where is the outrage?
Business, which contributes billions to the skills development pipeline through the Seta levies, has stayed largely mute. Universities and academic institutions that shape tomorrow’s leaders have yet to issue a joint statement or challenge the political calculus that seems to increasingly shape public appointments. Civil society voices have been laudably persistent but scattered. At least the Institute of Directors in Southern Africa and union federation Cosatu spoke strongly about their disappointment on this matter.
We need to confront the uncomfortable truth: SA suffers not just from unethical leadership but from an epidemic of silence among those who know better. Each time a board is stacked for political convenience, or oversight is ignored and no-one speaks up, the social contract unravels just a little more.
This silence is not theoretical, it has cost. It deepens public distrust, weakens institutions and signals to the next generation that moral courage is merely elective. How can we teach governance while ignoring its erosion? What credibility do our institutions have if they do not model the very values they espouse?
Now is the time for a Damascus moment, a bold and collective reckoning that challenges not only this particular ministerial misstep but the broader culture of boardroom appointments across public sector entities.
Call to action
We urgently need to convene a national task force on ethical governance, chaired independently and comprising the Institute of Directors in Southern Africa; business and labour bodies; higher education leadership; and representatives from Chapter 9 institutions and civil society.
SA has no shortage of brilliant minds, passionate reformers and ethical institutions. What we lack is co-ordination, courage and momentum.
This task force’s first mission should be to redesign the governance frameworks for all boards appointed by the government, not just those linked to higher education. This includes rethinking how nominations are made, how performance is reviewed and how transparency and accountability can be built into the DNA of every board structure. It must also recommend legal reforms, including codified appointment criteria and whistle-blower protections for governance failures.
What is at stake is not merely the functioning of a handful of public entities. It is the broader narrative about what kind of leadership this country rewards, and whether good governance is a constitutional ideal or a negotiable commodity.
SA has no shortage of brilliant minds, passionate reformers and ethical institutions. What we lack is co-ordination, courage and momentum.
Let this be the moment when the sectors that shape our society — academia, business, labour and civil service — reclaim their voice and refuse to stand by. The time for polite disappointment has passed.
The time for transformative action is now, because when those with the power to speak choose silence they not only fail to stop the rot — they become part of it.
• Pillay, a lecturer at Gordon Institute of Business Science, is a governance practitioner and multi-stakeholder partnership advocate. He writes in his personal capacity.
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