Activities
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In order to address the issue ofpoor record of parliamentary engagement with the people of Lesotho, including little constituency feed-back, few constituency clinics, an absence of public information on parliament and poor media coverage of parliament, Good Governance Officer together with the Democracy Head organised and held three series of workshops at Roma, Our Ladies Guest House for the Chiefs and Councillors in the Local Council of Makhaleng A11 within the Makhaleng Counstituency No. 45 on 15-16; 20-21; 23-24 October 2008.

The GGO together with the Democracy and Human Rights desk held a series of workshops for the Chiefs and the Councillors with the Makhalaneng Council. The villages were clustered into three areas in order to make the workshop manageable. For each workshop about thirty participants took part. The main purpose of the workshop was to deepen an understanding of the Chiefs and Councillors about the Local Government Act of 1997, the Chieftainship Act of 1968 and the popularising of the Sexual Offences Act of 1996 in the light of them understanding their roles and responsibilities in so far as these Acts are concerned and further to strive to increase public participation in parliamentary process.

The workshop further aimed at harmonizing relationships between Chiefs and Councillors as they are the key democracy stakeholders within the Basotho society. Moreover, the Chiefs and Councillors are agents of change at the community level and therefore if their working relations are acrimonious, service deliver and development initiatives at the local level would be affected.

Finally, the Chiefs and the Councillors were enlightened about the LDP activities in the Makhaleng Constituency and were urged to support the programme. Connecting the Chiefs and the Councillors with LDP activities is a major factor enhancing the ability of communities to understand how Parliament functions and how public participation on parliamentary matters can be enhanced in order to deepen democratic principles.

Understanding about the roles and functions of MPs and the generality of how parliament functions and how different publics ought to participate meaningfully in the parliamentary affairs is wanting and this manifested itself during the course of the workshops.

For the Councillors it was noted that they have not yet fulfilled much in as far as their mandate is concerned. For instance, the Act requires that each Council should open up a Bank Account in which all monies concerning the operations of the council should be deposited into. This has not happened in the case of Makhalaneng A11 council. The Act further requires Council Secretary (SC) to prepare books of accounts on monthly and annual basis and subsequent to that be caused to audit financial reports by qualified auditor to be appointed by the Minister. But the Makhalanang Council A11 has never been audited ever since Local Government election in 2005 despite the fact the council has always been making financial transactions. The voters are certainly not aware of these clauses of the Act and the worse part of it is that even the Councillors were seemingly not aware of the most crucial provisos of the Act that have a bearing on their day to day conduct.

The Councillors were again exposed to the processes they need to follow in as far as the local community needs and concerns are concerned. And further they were made aware of the inter-relationships between the local council, Parliament and the Member of Parliament. The process was thus discussed in accordance to the following order: Local Council and Council Secretary (SC); District Council (DC) and District Council Secretary; District Development Coordinating Committee (DDCC); District Planning Unit (DPU); and the District Administrator.

On the part of the Chiefs, it was noted that the chiefs have not been given any kind of training that would otherwise enhance their knowledge and skills in fulfilling their mandate stipulated by the said Acts of parliament and moreover to be exposed to the most basic rights under a constitutional democracy. Therefore, this workshop was regarded as the first of its own kind in the sense that it brought together these two parties who it is needless to say that they need each other in making the local government a reality. It was further noted that some of the chiefs do not know how to read and write as opposed to their counterparts – councillors. In most cases where a Chief does not know how to read and write, the councillor takes an advantage of the situation and as a result unnecessary conflicts prevail. Another aspect which fuels animosity between Chiefs and councillors is the fact that the councillors’ wages almost triples that of Chiefs and therefore inferior complexity plays a centre stage and as a result friction between chiefs and councillors perpetuates.

Challenges

Local Government Act 1997 and Local Government Regulations 2005, Legal Notice No. 48
The workshop brought a number of challenges to the surface and they require urgent attention and support of the Central government in order to promote good governance to the benefit of the voters. The following challenges were identified regarding the local government fulfilling its Constitutional obligations as stipulated under Section 106 (1) and it thus read:

“Parliament shall establish such local authorities as it deems necessary to enable urban and rural communities to determine their affairs and to develop themselves”.  

• Declaration of Assets: Section 4 of the Act requires that Councillors must declare their assets and they duly did that. However the challenge is that the MPs for National Parliament must also enact a law that would enable them to do the same.
• Removal of a Councillor: The circumstances under which a Councillor may be removed from office as stipulated by the Regulations, Section 6 (1) and 2 should be upheld in the case of removal of an MP for the National Parliament because that promotes democratic principle of accountability to the electorate.
• Council Fund and it Constituents : Section 47 (1) and (2) provides that every Council must have its own Council Fund for its general financial transactions but it surfaced that the said Fund is non existent. Currently, all finances of the Council are being kept within the District Council’s account. The Council was therefore advised to open up its own Bank account in order to meet the needs of the communities. The government has given this council about M276, 000.00 but on contrary the money is kept within the District Council’s bank account.
• Accounts and Budget: Sections 60 on preparation and publication of annual accounts; 61(1) and (2) on Budget and how it has been used on annual basis; and 62 (1) and (2) on Financial Statements of the Act have not been fulfilled to date and as a result compromise among others democratic principles of accountability, transparency, Anti-corruption and good governance.
• Audit: Section 63 (1) of the Act requires that the books of accounts of the council shall be audited by the Government Auditor or by such other professionally qualified auditor as may be appointed by the Minister. However, this proviso has not been put to test ever since local government election in 2005.
• Acrimony between Chiefs and Councillors: This is generally caused by unclear roles and responsibilities of both Chiefs and Councillors. The workshop had dealt with this issue at length.

The above challenges and others not presented here were analysed in the light of principle of parliamentary democracy and good governance. The participants were in most cases not aware about what was required by law. And further the Acts have written in English and therefore they are incapacitated to know and apply the law. However they thanked TRC/LDP for organising this kind of the workshop as they are different from what other institutions offer.

Chieftaincy Act 1968
Most Chiefs knew about their roles and responsibilities as contained in the Act. And they further acknowledged the fact that the local government has ever since been in place in Lesotho but under a different political context. According to the Chiefs, introduction of recent local government in 1995-1997 had involved in greater extend party politics more than anything else and as a result the chiefs were made to feel uncomfortable bearing two issues in mind. 1) That the elected Councillors were now going to replace the Chiefs and 2) that the Chieftaincy was no longer relevant is as far as our democracy was concerned.

Given this situation, the chiefs in most cases decided to defend the chieftaincy as an institution by not unleashing some of the powers, roles and responsibilities that were now to be assumed by the elected councillors provided under the Local Government Act, 1997. Understandably, this had caused a lot of confusion and animosity not only within the local sphere of governance but including the national sphere of governance.

Legal Capacity of Married Persons Act 1996
The local structures of governance are regarded as the key stakeholders in so far as implementation of this Act is concerned. It was therefore with that kind of understanding that TRC Human Rights Officer in her capacity as a Lawyer was invited to discuss with the participants the contents of the Act and as well as popularising the same. Most participants were not able to understand how that law was made taking into consideration cultural aspects which they thought the law was insensitive of. Again the strong point they made here was that the laws seemed to be known more to the government and less to the people whom these laws are made to apply on them.

This is where the participants were able to understand where the LDP was coming from in terms of making the parliament accessible to the people and enhancing the capacity of the people to participate and become enlightened about parliamentary affairs.

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