Editorial: Take a fresh look at our envoys abroad

After years of witnessing embarrassing scandals involving some of our diplomats in missions around the world, it is time to review and rethink how we select and appoint those we entrust with the responsibility of representing our interests in foreign lands.

Heads of diplomatic missions are appointed by the president. He gives them the responsibility of leading the government's efforts of building and maintaining friendships and partnerships with those countries. Their work must help boost our image abroad and, hopefully, yield massive economic spin-offs for the country.

During their time in these missions, their only focus should be the advancement of South Africa and all her citizens. Countries that attach great value to diplomacy and development appoint to these key positions trained diplomats - whether career diplomats or political appointees. They go for respected men and women of high integrity, morals and outstanding character. Their understanding of the world of foreign diplomacy must be second to none. They recruit only the best.

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We have had a few such people in our diplomatic corps. One that comes to mind is our former high commissioner to the UK, Zola Skweyiya. He was deployed to London after a distinguished political career spanning 15 years.

After being appointed to Nelson Mandela's first cabinet in 1994, Skweyiya went on to serve as a minister in Thabo Mbeki's administration from 1999. Ten years later he resigned as an MP. He was later appointed to head our mission in London.

There is also Welile Nhlapo, the doyen of our diplomatic corps. Nhlapo is our former ambassador to Washington, DC. He boasts a decorated career in diplomacy, having been in the delegation to the UN General Assembly in 1994 to secure our readmission. Before his deployment to Washington, he spent years as non-resident ambassador to African countries like Djibouti, Eritrea and Sudan.

We take nothing away from the many exceptional men and women working in our foreign missions - often under difficult conditions in faraway countries and away from the comfort of family and familiar surroundings - but we have reason to worry about our current cadre of diplomats. Many have not covered themselves in glory.

The reason is simple. Over the years, we have kept quiet when these positions were filled by disgraced politicians, criminals and senior members of the ruling party when they failed to make it onto parliamentary lists. Most disturbingly, we have kept quiet when these positions were being used to dish out patronage.

That is why all of us must be outraged by the revelations today that Obed Mlaba, our high commissioner to the UK, has been using his South Africa House office in London to run his own foundation and his influential position to solicit donations from companies in that country and in South Africa.

This revelation comes as we are still waiting to hear the fate of another diplomat, who failed to declare a criminal record when offered the post. High commissioner to Singapore Hazel Ngubeni is a convicted drug trafficker who was fired from SAA after being jailed in New York for smuggling a bag of cocaine. She spent two years in a US prison but did not disclose her conviction when she was nominated for the diplomatic post in 2013.

Surely something is wrong with how we recruit these diplomats if it gives us people of the calibre of Ngubeni and Mlaba. Unless we find out what it is and change it, we will forever remain the laughing stock of the world.