Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Paseka Mokete has been issued a show-cause letter, accused of tarnishing the reputation of the Lesotho Mounted Police Service (LMPS). His offense? Answering a question honestly to the Lesotho Tribune. According to thepost, Mokete admitted he was not privy to the details of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between the police and investment firm Mergence, despite being listed as a witness. For this candour, he now faces the threat of suspension.
At first glance, this appears to be an internal disciplinary matter. But step back, and it becomes a textbook case of what ESG frameworks describe as governance failure. It demonstrates how institutions corrode when image is valued above integrity, when secrecy is prized above accountability, and when transparency itself becomes a punishable offense.
The Governance Pillar of ESG
ESG is not only a corporate tool; it is increasingly a measure of how public institutions perform under the pressure of accountability. The “G”; governance demands transparency, ethical leadership, and responsiveness to stakeholders. In the case of the police, the stakeholders are not shareholders but the public whose taxes fund the service and whose rights depend on its credibility.
By penalising Mokete for admitting his lack of knowledge, the LMPS leadership has inverted this principle. Instead of encouraging honesty, it punishes it. Instead of promoting accountability, it signals that silence is safer than truth. And instead of aligning with ESG standards that attract trust and investment, it undermines them.
Secrecy as Institutional Culture
This episode exposes a broader pathology: secrecy has become institutionalised in Lesotho’s governance structures. The police commissioner’s fury at Mokete was not about operational failure. It was about optics — the fear that a senior officer admitting ignorance would embarrass the institution.
But embarrassment is not a crime. What corrodes institutions is the attempt to airbrush reality. ESG thinking is clear on this: resilience comes not from suppressing flaws, but from confronting them. Companies that bury bad data eventually lose investor confidence. Governments that punish truth-telling officials lose legitimacy.
In Lesotho, however, the reflex is to shoot the messenger. It is the official who speaks plainly — not the architect of questionable deals — who ends up defending themselves in disciplinary hearings.
Link to Pension Fund Governance
This case cannot be divorced from the wider scandals swirling around Lesotho’s public funds. The MOU with Mergence, which sparked Lesotho Tribune’s questions, is itself part of a larger story of opaque financial arrangements and conflicts of interest in the pension industry. At the centre of this are unresolved questions about governance: Who benefits? Who approves? Who scrutinises?
The Central Bank of Lesotho has faced criticism for its failure to enforce proper oversight. Pension funds have allowed themselves to be captured by conflicted service providers. And time and again, public officials tasked with asking questions are either silenced, sidelined, or punished. Mokete’s show-cause letter is not an isolated event; it is a symptom of systemic resistance to transparency.
The ESG Lens on Policing
Globally, police services are not immune from ESG scrutiny. Social responsibility includes how law enforcement treats dissent, how it manages public trust, and how it uses power. Governance, in turn, covers the internal accountability structures that prevent abuse and ensure credibility.
Lesotho’s police service has often found itself in headlines for the wrong reasons: excessive use of force, politicised operations, and weak internal accountability. Adding to that list the punishment of a senior officer for speaking to the press only deepens concerns that governance is treated as a nuisance rather than a necessity.
When ESG analysts look at countries for investment risk, these institutional signals matter. Weak governance in one part of the state bleeds into perceptions of the entire investment climate. If the police punish transparency, what faith can investors have in regulatory agencies, procurement processes, or state-owned enterprises?
The Risk of Normalising Retaliation
The governance failure here is not just institutional but cultural. Every show-cause letter like Mokete’s sends a message down the ranks: loyalty to leadership trumps loyalty to truth. Over time, this corrodes morale, entrenches fear, and breeds compliance rather than courage.
It also normalises retaliation. Today it is a police officer being silenced for answering a journalist. Tomorrow it could be a procurement officer questioning a tender, or a regulator probing a financial deal. Once the culture of punishing openness is entrenched, it spreads across institutions.
And ESG investors notice. Socially responsible funds, development financiers, and international partners increasingly demand proof that countries respect governance standards. Where there is retaliation against transparency, funding dries up, and reputational damage lingers.
Why This Matters Beyond Policing
The Mokete affair resonates beyond the police barracks. It touches on a national dilemma: Lesotho struggles with the basic building blocks of governance. Institutions too often protect themselves rather than the public, shield elites rather than serve citizens, and enforce silence rather than encourage disclosure.
This is not merely a police story. It is the same story told through the collapse of trust in pension fund governance, through opaque deals in mining and energy, and through politicised decision-making in agriculture. The names and faces change, but the mechanics are the same.
The Lesson for ESG in Lesotho
ESG is not just a checklist. It is a lens that reveals whether institutions can survive the shocks of scrutiny, crisis, and change. In Lesotho’s case, the lens keeps catching the same flaw: governance is brittle because it is allergic to transparency.
DCP Mokete’s fate will tell us whether the LMPS is willing to embrace governance principles or whether it will double down on its culture of opacity. If he is punished, the message will be clear: honesty has no place in the institution. If the case is dropped, it may mark a small but important step toward aligning police culture with the governance standards that Lesotho desperately needs.
Closing Warning
A show-cause letter may look like a small administrative act. But in the ESG framework, it is a flashing red light. It warns that governance is being inverted, that truth is being criminalised, and that institutions are mistaking image management for accountability.
The real danger is not the embarrassment of one honest comment. The real danger is the institutional culture that punishes candour and rewards silence. In ESG terms, that is not just poor governance, it is the beginning of collapse.
