Raymond Mujuni. Courtesy photoImagine a vacancy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Senior Policy Adviser. The work entails supporting Uganda’s foreign policy, engaging in regional diplomacy, and engagement with partners such as the European Union. On the shortlist is a communications professional with over 10 years in economics, public affairs and investigative journalism, a close reader of public discourse, with a master’s in Diplomatic Studies from Oxford University UK and a bachelor’s in Government and International Relations from Uganda Christian University. He gets the job. Then comes loud online reactions stating that he is a traitor, because he was once a sharp critic of government. Ironically, none of those voices has offered him an alternative way to earn a living or keep his young family afloat in this difficult economy of ours. But I digress. That is Raymond Mujuni’s position. Before we make a verdict on this matter, one question is worth asking: can someone who has spent years criticising government become an effective public servant without abandoning the principles that made the criticism valuable? It is ironical that lawyers represent murderers and rapists as a matter of professional duty but communications professionals are put under a spotlight for the clients they choose to advise or employers they decide to work for. The comparison needs nuance. A lawyer protects rights and due process while a communicator shapes perception and reputation, and owes a duty to truth and the public interest. Now, ethical communication is not the art of spinning a bad situation into a good story. It is the work of helping an institution confront reality, take responsibility, and speak honestly about the remedy. Action first, communication second. If the problem remains, no clever lines or slogans will hold sway. Good PR does not make a bad reality look good; it helps make a bad reality better, then communicates the change so it can be believed. That is regret, responsibility and reform, the three Rs of Crisis Communication. It is important to note that governments are gigantic institutions made up of many professionals, from economists to lawyers, from doctors to engineers and from accountants to policy specialists, all who help run it and turn the wheels that operate it. So, for the likes of Mujuni and Co., those who have documented a system’s failures are often well placed to repair them. Criticism built on hard core evidence can provide a map that can be used to guide the critics where to start once they land that government job. Social commentator Nicholas Opiyo warned that authoritarianism creeps in disguised as the reward of mobilisers, and that a professional inside such a system survives only by trading judgment for loyalty. I am not too sure about that but the warning from him is serious, and it also cuts both ways: if the system is short of competence, the arrival of a competent person in a technical role is a test to the system (and not to the person), and the acceptance of a role within government is not an automatic surrender. Over time, President Museveni’s administration has repeatedly appointed technically-trained professionals who once criticised state performance. The lazy reading is that they were hired to be silenced. The better reading is that they were hired because they already knew where the machine failed. Sometimes the very people who have spent years interrogating government policy are well placed to understand its shortcomings and advise on how to address them. Before Mujuni, there were others, and the precedents are clear. Dr Ramathan Ggoobi spent 15 years writing “Are You Listening, Mr President?” before becoming Permanent Secretary and Secretary to the Treasury; the fiscal discipline he always argued for is now his daily brief. Dr Diana Atwine’s clinical criticism of public hospital failure preceded the Health Monitoring Unit and her appointment as Permanent Secretary. Jennifer Musisi treated a dysfunctional Kampala as a technical problem at KCCA; she was so good at her job that Harvard later made a case study of the work. All these careers do not prove every appointment is meritorious, rather they show that government and public administration runs on expertise, no matter where it comes from. A more recent case sits closer to the centre of the state: Dr Arinaitwe Deo Rugyendo, co-founder of Red Pepper, was appointed Principal Press Secretary to the Speaker of the 12th Parliament, Rt Hon. Jacob Oboth-Oboth, who holds the third-highest office in Uganda. Now, his relationship with the state was not linear; in November 2017 he and colleagues at Red Pepper were arrested after a politically-sensitive story on Uganda and Rwanda. Their publishing offices were sealed off and charges followed. The matter ended in 2018 with a presidential pardon, but over the years he has also spoken publicly about corruption, institutional weakness and the duty of government to account. Fast forward, he is now attached to a parliamentary communications desk; if you do not get it, serving the Speaker does not erase the criticism, and the criticism does not decide how he will perform. The measure is the work he does: the accuracy of what is said, the openness of the institution, and the value delivered to the public. A professional’s career is not permanently defined by the last chair they occupied. Mujuni’s record follows a similar pattern to Dr Arinaitwe’s: fourteen years in journalism, hosting Fourth Estate and conducting investigative work on institutional failures. Some of his old tweets criticising the Government, quite harshly, in fact, have since resurfaced. Yet these have done little to diminish the credentials he brings to the table. Ultimately, the fair test should be the quality of the advice he offers and the contribution he makes in public service. The writer is the Managing Director & Head of Strategy, COG EA LtdThe post In defence of Raymond Mujuni: Why the best critics make the best public servants appeared first on The Observer Media Ltd.