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SUMMARY OF EVENTS IN LESOTHO Volume 3, Number 1 (First Quarter 1996) |
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Summary of events in Lesotho is a quarterly publication compiled and published by David Ambrose since 1993 at the National University of |
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SUMMARY OF EVENTS IN LESOTHO Volume 7, Number 4 (Fourth Quarter 2000) |
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Summary of events in Lesotho is a quarterly publication compiled and published by David Ambrose since 1993 at the National University of Lesotho, P. O. Roma 180, Lesotho. |
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President Mbeki fined One Cow by King Letsie IIIAlthough he had sent his wife to represent him, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa had not himself been present at the Royal Wedding on 18 February 2000. This failure to appear did not go unnoticed, and King Letsie III subsequently announced that President’s failure to attend his wedding would be punished by a fine of one cow. The South African President accepted the fine in good humour, but as it
turned out he did not have to provide it from his own pocket. A group of
Ladybrand farmers decided early in October to get together to provide the
necessary beast and to deliver it to Lesotho. There was some talk that when
traditionally fined in this way, the beast had to be personally delivered.
However those who had hoped to see the pipe-smoking president, a cattle-prod in
hand, steering a cow across Maseru Bridge were disappointed. South African High Commission Employee Murdered in MaseruA clerical officer in the South African High Commission, Reuben Mfana Nyangiwe, aged 54, was murdered in Upper Thamae on 27 September 2000, although his death was not announced until later after his relatives in Umzimkhulu (an Eastern Cape enclave in KwaZulu-Natal) had been informed. His two brothers, on attempting to cross into Lesotho, at first suffered the indignity of being turned back by the South African Border Post because they did not have suitable identity documents, but the South African High Commission provided them with transport to Thaba Nchu so that this could be rectified. Nyangiwe was stabbed to death at his home in the Maseru suburb of Upper
Thamae, but the exact motive for the killing was obscure. Retirement of Commissioner of PoliceAccording to the Lesotho Government Gazette of 11 September 2000, the Commissioner of Police, Eliot Kahlolo Petlane had been required (by King Letsie III ‘acting in accordance with the advice of the Prime Minister’ and in accordance with the Police Service Act) to retire from the Police Service with effect from 10 September 2000. That the retirement was sudden was shown by there being no immediate replacement, so that the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Jonase Sponkie Malewa, was appointed as Acting Commissioner. However, Malewa was subsequently appointed substantive Commissioner of Police with effect from 1 November 2000. Informed sources indicated that Petlane’s premature retirement was related to
his willingness (against the wishes of the Prime Minister) to reinstate some of
the police convicted of breaking the Internal Security Act after a very lengthy
trial. One such policeman (as reported in Mopheme of 19 September 2000) had in
fact been reinstated on half salary pending an Appeal Court hearing. New Cooperative Societies ActThe Cooperative Societies Act (Act no. 6 of 2000) became law on being published in the Lesotho Government Gazette of 15 September 2000. It makes a clean sweep of earlier legislation and repeals earlier statutes of 1948 and 1966. Cooperative societies have had a chequered history in Lesotho. A favourite of
donors (and before that of the Catholic Church), most cooperatives survived and
even thrived when donor funds were available. However, few proved to be
self-sustaining, and the donor regime rather encouraged the belief that loans
were gifts which it was not necessary to repay. Matters came to a head when
donors dwindled and the apex organisation, Coop Lesotho, collapsed. A massive
370-page Report of a Commission of Inquiry into Co-operatives carried out by Mr
Justice Lehohla in 1994 found that of 247 debtors, those with the largest unpaid
debts were Her Majesty, Queen ’Mamohato, and the former Head of the Military
Council, Mr Metsing Lekhanya (now Leader of the Basotho National Party). The
Report recommended the liquidation of Coop Lesotho, and discussed inadequacies
in the law and a draft bill. However, it took 6 years before the bill was
enacted. Ha Tšosane Couple MurderedTwo well-known residents of the Maseru suburb of Ha Tšosane were killed in mid-September when attackers broke into their house stealing money and demanding the keys of their car. Shot dead were Mokhabi Matabola, Accountant at the Lesotho Brewing Company; and his wife, ’Marethabile Matabola, Senior Information Officer at the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority. It was reported two weeks later in Mopheme of 3 October 2000, that three suspects had been apprehended after a robbery at Sebelekoane in Mafeteng District. They were said to be members of the Lesotho Defence Force and were being investigated for the theft of galilee rifles from the base at Ha Ratjomose. Two weeks later, Mopheme of 17 October was reporting that two (not three) persons had been arrested in connection with the theft of rifles, the murder of the Matabolas and the Sebelekoane robbery. However, one of the two, Tšupane Mahamo, 27, of Ha Makhakhe in Mafeteng District, had mysteriously escaped from police custody. Mahamo already had a criminal record, had been gaoled in Maseru Central prison, and had been released after serving a six year sentence as recently as August 2000. He had apparently been familiar with the Ratjomose Military Base armoury, while detailed as a prisoner to work on cleaning the surroundings. It now seemed that the LDF suspects were eliminated from suspicion. However,
what had happened to them was far from clear. Mopheme stated that they had been
‘subjected to intensive interrogation, resulting in them sustaining fatal
injuries’. However, it went on to say that ‘they were later released without any
charges’. Presumably they had had rather a rough time, but escaped with their
lives. Nedbank to Maintain Kokobela CemeteryNedbank (Lesotho), which has been the successor in Maseru to Standard
Chartered Bank, was reported in Southern Star of 6 October 2000 to have agreed
to maintain the Kokobela Cemetery in Maseru West. The cemetery adjoins the
residence of the Managing Director of the bank in Lesotho, Mr Dave Watts. Fourth Amendment to the Constitution Bill PublishedThe Fourth Amendment to the Constitution Bill 2000, which makes provision for electoral change was printed in Mohlanka newspaper of 7 October 2000, with the comment ‘The last time when the Fourth Amendment Bill was presented to Parliament, it was desecrated by members of the National Assembly but supported in its original form by the Senate. This disagreement did not get us anywhere.’ The Bill as printed makes provision for the new Parliament to have 130 members, with 80 elected in constituencies and the remaining 50 elected to seats allocated to political parties ‘in accordance with the principle of proportional representation applied in respect of 130 seats’. This presumably means that after totalling the constituency votes nation wide, 50 seats are available to redress imbalances, so that the overall parliament is as close as possible to one completely elected by proportional representation. The bill refers to these provisions as transitional arrangements, and makes provision for there to be thereafter 65 constituency seats and 65 seats ‘in accordance with the principal of proportional representation applied in respect of the National Assembly as a whole’. The Bill makes it possible for elections to take place using the existing constituency delimitation (although thereafter a new delimitation into 65 constituencies will be necessary). It also has provisions relating to the Independent Electoral Commission and to the National Assembly quorum (raised to 33, approximating the quarter (20) at present applying). The revised Bill was presented in the National Assembly for its First Reading on 27 September. A parallel Bill before Parliament, the National Assembly Elections (Amendment) Bill 2000 makes provision for the introduction of fingerprint technology during registration, a system favoured by the Interim Political Authority, but regarded by many in government as prohibitively expensive, and difficult to implement in the absence of electricity in most rural areas. Registration was supposed to have begun by 1 October 2000 according to an
earlier elections schedule. However when October arrived there was no sign that
registration was even about to begin. Leon Commission to Reconvene in JanuaryThe three man Commission of Inquiry into the 1998 political disturbances, originally given less than two months to complete its task, now seems set to take more than a year. According to the Chairman, Justice Ray Leon, the hearings so far had implicated many persons, who had a right to give evidence in their defence. The Commission was adjourned on 28 September 2000 until 15 January 2001, when it would hear defence evidence from those implicated. Implicated people would be individually notified through the Commission’s secretariat, with invitations for them to arrange to meet the Commission after it had reconvened in January. The Commission had originally been set to begin hearings on 25 April 2000 and
to report its findings before the end of May, a timetable which in the event had
proved quite impossibly unrealistic. New Book Reviews Education Sector in LesothoA new book, Review of education sector analysis in Lesotho 1978-1999, published by UNESCO in Paris, became available in Lesotho in October 2000. It is the work of an 8-person team based at the National University of Lesotho Institute of Education, headed by Professor Molapi Sebatane. The book reviews in detail 80 different Lesotho education documents from the period 1978 to 1999, these in turn having been chosen as the most significant from a larger population of 139 documents. The research team not only reviewed the documents but also carried out 22 interviews with key personnel in the education sector, including representatives of donor agencies. Stakeholder workshops in which progress was reported and discussed were also a part of review process. Chapter 4 of the book lists findings about some of the most serious problems facing the Lesotho educational system. Amongst these are that the proportion of school-age children enrolled in primary schools has gone down; that the quality of teaching and learning is declining; and that there are limited physical resources and a shortage of competent manpower. Financial planning and management problems are described as well as the question of diversification of curricula. A major problem is that not enough primary teachers are being trained, even to replace those lost by natural attrition. A 96-page appendix provides summaries of the 80 documents reviewed together
with a key word index. Fuel Price IncreaseFuel prices were increased for the second time in six weeks on 8 October 2000 when the normal price of petrol in the Lowlands was increased from M3.42 to M3.62 per litre. There was a further increase on 1 November when the price was raised from M3.62 to M3.82 per litre. These rises followed an earlier rise on 1 September when the price had been hiked from M3.20 to M3.42 per litre. In two months, the fuel rise had risen by 19.4%. However, new taxi fares were not immediately announced. Fuel prices worldwide went down in the last months of 2000. As a result, it
was announced at the end of December that the normal (Lowlands) price of petrol
in Lesotho would be reduced on 1 January 2001 to M3.60 (M3.65 in Quthing, M3.73
in Thaba-Tseka and M3.81 in Mokhotlong). Jack Urner Dies in Car CrashJack Urner, an American who first came to Lesotho in 1993 to supervise the USAID Primary Education Project, was killed in a head-on collision near Thaba Nchu on the way to Bloemfontein on Friday 13 October 2000. His wife, Carol, who was well known for her work with the Transformation Resource Centre and in other areas, was seriously injured. Jack Urner, who was a graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced
International Studies and also held a PhD in Planning from the University of
Chicago. Before arriving in Lesotho, he had spent 35 years living and working in
Libya, the Philippines, Egypt, Bangladesh and Bhutan. He was the last serving
member of USAID in Lesotho, and when it closed down, he and his wife stayed on
to undertake a variety of voluntary work. Tributes were paid to Jack at a
memorial meeting in Maseru on Monday 13 November. His widow, Carol, was still in
Hydromed Hospital at the end of the year, but it was expected that by late
January she would be well enough to be flown back to the United States. Death of Chieftainess ’Mampoi SeeisoChieftainess ’Mampoi Seeiso, sister to the late King Moshoeshoe II, was buried on Saturday 14 October at her home in Matsieng. According to Mololi of 18 October 2000, her body was found after she had been dead for a number of days (probably more than two months according to Mohlanka of 17 October), and her body was found seated in a chair. Chieftainess ’Mampoi had at times been a colourful and idiosyncratic member
of the Royal Family. She joined at one point an unusual religious sect, and
appeared on public occasions in the vestments of a bishop of that church. British Council to Close in MaseruA statement issued by the British High Commissioner, Ms Kaye Oliver, on Thursday 19 October 2000, announced that it was planned to close the British Council in Maseru, with June 2001 planned as the provisional date for closure. The move was in line with the need to respond to changes in the pace of social and technological developments across the world. The British Council building in central Maseru facing Hobson’s Square, was designed by architect Colin Unsworth, then Assistant Government Architect in the Public Works Department. His other buildings had included the Basotho Hat. A Maseru landmark, likened by some to an upturned boat, the building was formally opened on 10 May 1965 with a Library and Reading Room as well as a hall. This hall has served many purposes, and at Independence it was the setting for an impressive exhibition, Lesotho Past and Present, which could have been the nucleus for a Lesotho National Museum. Unfortunately, the display had to be dismantled because there was then no suitable museum building, but the need for such a building did prompt the two commercial banks in Maseru (then Barclays DCO and Standard Chartered) to contribute substantial and equal sums for a museum project. Unfortunately, there is still no national museum and in the intervening years, funds raised for such a project have been twice embezzled. Over the years, the British Council building has been witness to many events including the disturbances following the coup of 1970, when on one occasion it acquired a neat line of bullet holes in the plaster of the external wall as a result of fire from an automatic weapon. This did not deter a later British Council Representative from having this same wall redesigned with windows replacing the plaster. The building’s architect did not make provision in its design for comfortable occupation of its roof space. This was unfortunate for members of the Special Branch who were detailed during the years when Leabua Jonathan was Prime Minister to make recordings when opposition parties hired the hall for meetings. At one such BCP meeting, those present were somewhat startled when quite unexpectedly there was a noise above, and a foot appeared through a hole in the ceiling. Reaction to the announcement of closure was a general feeling of regret. At most times even since before Independence there had been both a British Council Representative and an Assistant Representative. However, in 1996, the British Council had been downgraded to a situation where there was a local manager falling under the British Council in Johannesburg. The library nevertheless remained a major resource, whose books and audio-visual materials (items such as Open University films) were and are widely used by persons ranging from schoolchildren to university lecturers. Special exhibitions also attracted many visitors. When a new British Council Representative, Paul Feeney, was appointed in 1999, it was hoped that Britain was again recognising the importance of having cultural representation in the Lesotho capital. It is remembered that only recently had the United States Information Service also closed its library in Maseru, and that Lesotho had lost this facility partly as a result of inertia. Swaziland, where the USIS had also been destined to close, mounted a campaign to reverse a similar decision, and when the King of Swaziland had intervened personally with the United States President, the Swaziland USIS Library had been saved. In Botswana, a country with a smaller population than Lesotho, there is no
suggestion that the British Council might close. Indeed, the British Council
there is said to make a profit from its activities, including charging fees for
the service of recruiting teachers and others needed to fill posts funded by the
Botswana government. Lesotho, a much poorer country, is not a source of similar
profits, and there is a feeling that as a result it is being punished for its
poverty. British Council activities in Lesotho have over the years resulted for
Britain in massive (but not easily quantifiable) dividends of influence and
goodwill, but those that see profits in purely numerical and quantifiable terms
are apparently not convinced by such arguments. Crisis in WASA as Consumers Fail to Pay DebtsThe Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) is responsible for urban and peri-urban water supplies. In a statement to Parliament on 19 October 2000, as reported by Southern Star of 27 October 2000, the Minister of Natural Resources, Mr Monyane Moleleki, stated that WASA was owed M20 734 000, of which the Lesotho Government was responsible for M5 797 000, private consumers M9 665 000 and business consumers M2 309 000. (Exactly who owed the remaining M2 963 000 was not stated.) In order to attempt to enforce payment, WASA had closed a number of water taps as it was empowered to do by regulations made in 1992, but this was causing a public outcry, and as a result the Minister had ordered WASA to reopen them because it was government policy (passed on 18 May 1999) that every person should be guaranteed 30 litres of water a day. Further information appeared in Public Eye in which it was stated that 92 standpipes had been closed in Maseru and 8 in Mafeteng. None had been closed in other districts because the district secretaries had settled the outstanding debts. The financing of peri-urban water supplies has become an issue in recent years, because funds are no longer available to provide free piped water. Amongst options are the creation of water kiosks, manned by a water seller, and locked when he or she is not at work. These have already been established in the Maseru suburbs of Ha Leqele and Ha Abia. Another possibility is the use of prepaid water cards, inserted in a dispenser, similar to the system adopted for supplying electricity (a system introduced in response to a similar problem of massive unpaid debts). A third possibility is for water to be piped to premises, from which it can either be retailed or otherwise shared. However, quite how water that has to be paid for is compatible with the guaranteeing of 30 litres per person is not clear. The water woes of Maseru residents, even those who had settled their water
debts, were however not confined to cut-off standpipes. The contractors working
on the Maseru Relief Road managed in October to sever the main rising main to
the water reservoir above Maseru from which water is distributed by gravity to a
large area. Houses in the southern suburbs of Maseru including Qoaling were
without water for several days. Candidates for Vice-Chancellor give ‘Public’ LectureAccording to the university’s weekly news sheet, Information Flash, on 31 October 2000 the three short-listed candidates for the post of Vice-Chancellor each gave an invited lecture on the topic ‘Managing the National University of Lesotho in the 21st Century: my vision as the Vice-Chancellor’. Although Information Flash stated that it was a ‘public’ lecture, in fact the audience was an invited one consisting of 28 representatives of the ‘university’s external stakeholders, 39 staff from the university’s faculties, institutes and library; 10 senior administrative staff; 10 non-academic staff and 10 students. Others who wished to attend, including the press, were in fact not turned away. The candidates gave their presentations in alphabetical order of surnames. The first to present was Dr L. Thikhoi Jonathan, the present Pro-Vice-Chancellor. She is on secondment as PVC from the university’s Chemistry Department and is a daughter of the late Prime Minister of Lesotho, Leabua Jonathan. She was followed by Professor Mafa Sejanamane, a political scientist and former Director of the Institute of Southern African Studies at NUL. More recently he had a number of academic positions in South Africa and was currently the Executive Director of the Institute for Multi-Party Democracy. The third candidate was Dr Tefetso Henry Mothibe, an historian, whose credentials include a period on Robben Island when, as a student at NUL in 1976, he supported the Soweto student uprising and was arrested in South Africa. His doctoral thesis was on the labour movement in Zimbabwe, and he is a former Head of the NUL History Department. Asking candidates for the post of Vice-Chancellor to give an invited lecture is without precedent in the history of NUL, and seems to have been prompted by a similar procedure being adopted recently at the University of the Witwatersrand, when there was a bitter struggle to find an appropriate candidate. Information Flash of 3 November 2000 summarised in general terms what the three candidates said in their lectures without attributing statements to any particular candidate. The candidates also answered a large number of questions ranging from management style to information technology, campus turmoil, gender issues, relationship with unions, HIV/AIDS, transparency and accountability, and access for disabled students. In relation to how the university should be run, ‘they identified themselves within what could be regarded as a continuum of a traditionally run university on one hand and a corporately run institution on the other’. The new Vice-Chancellor will be appointed to replace Professor R. I. Maboee
Moletsane, already on terminal leave. His four-year term of office formally ends
on 31 December 2000. Supporters of LCD Factions ClashSupporters of the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy were reported in Mopheme of 24 October and Public Eye of 27 October 2000 to have clashed on Sunday 22 October with fists, sticks and stones, and gunfire was also heard at Lesotho Co-operative College, adjoining the Setsoto Stadium. At least five members of the party were injured and two of them hospitalised. The clash was said to have been sparked off by a quarrel over nomination procedures for the Qoaling and Lithoteng constituency committees. The two clashing factions were identified as Sehlopha, supporting the Prime Minister, Pakalitha Mosisili; and Lesiba, supporting the Deputy Prime Minister, Kelebone Maope and the party Secretary-General, Shakhane Mokhehle. The incident resulted in Public Eye to write an editorial saying that the
political parties were turning the country into a ‘Community of Clowns’. Central Bank Reports on IMF Staff Monitored ProgrammeThe October 2000 issue of a new publication, the Central Bank of Lesotho Economic Review, reported on the progress achieved in an International Monetary Fund (IMF) nine-month ‘Staff Monitored Programme’ which had been negotiated between the Lesotho Government and the IMF in December 1999. The programme had been initiated following concern about Lesotho’s balance of payments situation (the balance had dropped from over M500 million surplus to M300 million deficit between 1998 and 1999) and the volume of net foreign assets held by the Central Bank. The programme set out to achieve certain structural reforms which included creation of a unit to implement Value Added Tax (VAT); adjustment in the petrol price mechanism so that prices are realistic (they have often lagged behind South African prices); strengthen tax administration; creation of a Fiscal Analysis and Policy Unit in the Ministry of Finance (numerous taxes have not kept pace with inflation); enforcement of the Financial Institutions Act (major portions of the banking sector such as Lesotho Bank had been in breach of the law); and privatisation of the Lesotho Telecommunications Corporation. The report in the CBL Economic Review was generally upbeat and considered
that Lesotho had fulfilled the conditions necessary to win Fund approval for a
Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility scheme to be implemented later in 2000.
Liabilities Vested in Privatised Lesotho Bank Greatly in Excess of AssetsLegal Notice no. 174 of 2000, the Lesotho Bank (Prescription of Assets and Liabilities for Vesting) Notice 2000 was published in Lesotho Government Gazette no. 90 of 2000 (24 October 2000). It showed that the assets transferred to Lesotho Bank (1999) Limited were M355 million, while the liabilities were M931 million, M887 million of this being the money of account holders at the bank. The difference between liabilities and assets, namely M576 million had been provided, as previously announced by the Minister of Finance, by the Lesotho Government, which had also paid out M22 million in retrenchment packages to staff. It also paid M15 million to get a 30% share of the new Lesotho Bank. Meanwhile, the Lesotho Bank (Liquidation) Bill 2000 was proceeding through the Houses of Parliament. For example on 29 November, it occupied the Senate for the whole day, with the Minister of Finance, the Honourable Kelebone A. Maope, speaking for much of the time, and describing the bank as if it was an ailing loved-one who had been taken to the traditional doctors (lingaka tsa Sesotho) and to the white doctors (lingaka tsa Sekhooa) neither of whom could cure him: Mofu enoa eo re mo patang kajeno ... o kutse nako e telele, a kula a ntse a tsamaea, athe ka ’nete ke lefu le sa phekoleheng ... (‘The deceased whom we bury today ... he was ill for a long time, he was ill although still moving, but definitely he was suffering from an incurable illness ...’). A full post-mortem on the old bank has yet to be carried out and published,
but it is clear that its once fairly secure position when it benefited from the
compulsorily banking of deferred pay was compromised when large loans were made
to prominent citizens who defaulted on payment. Many more humble borrowers were
also unable to repay loans when they lost their employment as a result of the
1998 riots. Lesotho Bank’s earlier assumption of responsibility for two other
ailing financial institutions, the Lesotho Agricultural Development Bank and the
Lesotho Building Finance Corporation, had clearly also not improved its
situation. Draconian Penalties Prescribed in New Motor Vehicle Theft ActThe Motor Vehicle Theft Act 2000 (Act no. 13 of 2000) was published in a Lesotho Government Gazette Extraordinary of 26 October 2000. Unlike most legislation, it does not say when it comes into force, but the presumption must be that it came into force on publication in the Gazette. Under the Act, ‘a person who steals a motor vehicle, or receives a motor vehicle knowing or having reason to believe it to be a stolen vehicle, is ... liable for a first offence to imprisonment for a period of not less than eight years but not exceeding sixteen years without the option of a fine, and for a second or subsequent offence for a period not less than ten years but not exceeding twenty years without the option of a fine’. Where violence or threat of violence is used during the theft, the sentence (without the option of a fine) is 15 to 25 years, and if a firearm or other offensive weapon is used it is 15 to 30 years. It is specifically stated in the Act that no part of the sentence may be suspended, and that if the accused person is serving any other sentence, the sentence for motor vehicle theft must run consecutive to the other sentence. Similar but generally lesser penalties, and only in certain cases with the
option of a fine, are provided for theft of motor vehicle parts, tampering with
motor vehicles, use of false identification plates, breaking into a motor
vehicle and dealing in stolen motor vehicles. In addition anyone convicted under
the Act has his driving licence cancelled for a period of twice the sentence
imposed, and when the driving licence has been cancelled three times under the
Act, on the third occasion, the person convicted is disqualified for life. Thus
a person who uses a firearm in a motor vehicle theft will lose his licence for a
minimum of 30 years on first conviction, for a minimum of 30 years on second
conviction, and thereafter (although by this time his or her age will be not
less than 78) will be disqualified for life. Parliament Elects New Deputy SpeakerThe Speaker of Parliament, Ms Ntlhoi Motsamai, who had occupied the position alone since the death of the former speaker, J. T. Kolane, was provided with some relief, when the National Assembly in October finally got round to electing a Deputy Speaker. The new Deputy Speaker, ’Nau Peter Khali, aged 63, is a career civil servant who started work in the Legislative Council in 1964, and has had a career in a number of ministries of the civil service as well as in the foreign service. Most recently he was Deputy Clerk of the National Assembly. In the election, Khali received 33 votes, defeating by one vote the Clerk of
the National Assembly, Monare Thulo. The occasion caused the Prime Minister,
Pakalitha Mosisili, to recall that he had similarly won nomination to run as the
BCP candidate for Qacha’s Nek in 1993 by a single vote. Former Colonial Officer and Academic Writer Publishes ReminiscencesA new book, The last of the Queen’s men: a Lesotho experience was published in October 2000 jointly by the Witwatersrand University Press and the Morija Museum & Archives. The author, Peter Sanders, served the colonial administration from 1961 to 1965 during which time he was stationed in Maseru and Hlotse, and briefly in Mokhotlong. The book is written in an attractive readable style, and includes a number of well chosen anecdotes. In 1965, Peter Sanders was the Chief Electoral Officer, and his commentary on the 1965 elections is particularly illuminating, the more so because the report he wrote on these elections was never published. The government of the time objected to certain passages, particularly its remarks that the post-election by-elections showed a marked swing to the Basutoland Congress Party. After Independence, Peter Sanders undertook a study on King Moshoeshoe, which resulted in a University of Oxford DPhil thesis. Because there was a word limit, the thesis contained the biography of Lesotho’s founding monarch only up to the year 1848. The major book resulting from this academic enterprise, Moshoeshoe, Chief of the Sotho, did however span the monarch’s entire life until his death in 1870. The book describes experiences undertaking both the research on the Moshoeshoe book and on a further book in which Peter Sanders collaborated with Mosebi Damane, Lithoko: Sotho praise poems, published in 1974. In this book, the praise poems of principal chiefs are preceded by historical notes on the subjects of the poems, while the translations into English are accompanied by extensive annotations. After leaving Lesotho, Peter Sanders eventually joined the Commission for
Racial Equality in the United Kingdom, and was its Chief Executive at the time
of his retirement. Subsequently, he has returned to working on Lesotho history,
and is at present collaborating with Colin Murray on a study of medicine murder,
preliminary findings from which have already been published during the year 2000
in an article in the periodical, Africa. New Minimum Wages PrescribedNew minimum wages were prescribed by order of the Minister of Employment and Labour and published in a Lesotho Government Gazette Extraordinary of 31 October 2000, to take effect from the next day, 1 November 2000. The order replaces the previous minimum wages order which came into effect on 1 October 1999. Under the 2000 wages order, the new minimum wages are M27 per day or M502 per month for unskilled work. For a copy typist the minimum wage is M593 per month, and for a heavy vehicle driver the minimum wage is M964 per month. For most other types of job, stipulated minimum wages range between M502 and M964, with a variety of intermediate amounts for other types of job. Those falling outside this range are gardeners and domestic workers for which the minimum monthly wage is M170 and employees of businesses (such as village ‘cafes’ (small shops)) with one or two employees, for which the minimum wage is M341 per month. Nominal minimum wages have risen with inflation, although not everyone has done equally well. The chart shows, using 2000 prices, how wages have changed in real terms over the past 25 years, taking for simplicity the October retail price index for each year irrespective of the exact date of the wage fixing (in fact in most years it has been between August and December for which October is the middle month). The chart shows that in real terms copy typists and unskilled workers are getting essentially the same wages as 25 years ago, but heavy vehicle drivers are getting considerably less, having particularly lost out in the 1987 wage revision. From 1994, as shown by the very slightly rising straight lines, wages have risen very closely in line with inflation, but hardly at all in real terms. Small business employees (employees of businesses with less than three paid
workers) and domestic servants and gardeners have only had their minimum wages
controlled since 1994, and hence only appear on the chart for the period from
1994 to 2000. Catholic Priests leave ChurchAn interview was published in Public Eye of 3 November 2000 between reporter Leboela Motopi and former catholic priest, Mojalefa Ntlatlapa. This revealed that six priests had recently left the Diocese of Mohale’s Hoek, where they had been ordained by Bishop Sebastian Khoarai. Two of the former priests, Elias Thato Mona and Thabang Ernest Moloi, were now school teachers, respectively at Mount Carmel High School and ’Masentle High School. In 1999, they had successfully challenged in the High Court their suspension by the Bishop for alleged immoral conduct and other offences. In a 26-page judgment, Judge Modibedi had then ruled that the suspensions, despite the seriousness of the allegations, had flouted Catholic Canon Law, in that the Bishop could not act as a judge in a case where he had a personal interest. The suspended priests had also complained that they had not been given the opportunity to be heard before the suspensions were applied. Of three other former priests from Mohale’s Hoek Diocese, Fr Majoro was now teaching at St James Anglican High School in Maseru, while Fathers Mariti and Tsoebeane were now respectively working in the Archdioceses of Pretoria and Bloemfontein. Mojalefa Ntlatlapa, himself, was now a married man with a son. Subsequent to
leaving the priesthood, he had worked as a journalist with Radio Lesotho, had
worked for the Lesotho Council of Non-Governmental Organisations, and at present
was a rehabilitation officer with the Department of Social Welfare. However,
given the chance, he would resume work as a priest, as long as it would not
require him to abandon his family. ‘Smart Partnership Hub’ LaunchedOn Wednesday 8 November, a ‘Smart Partnership Hub’ was launched in Lesotho. According to Southern Star of 10 November 2000, the Prime Minister stated at the launching that ‘Smart Partnership is based on sharing visions and values, ethical commitment, trust, transparency and a sense of community and cooperative competition’. The new Hub was to have thirty committee members. Smart Partnership is a concept which originated in Malaysia in 1993, originating from a local hub, the Malaysia Industry Group for High Technology (MIGHT). The extent to which it has been successfully implemented elsewhere has not been stated by the Lesotho media, and its practical aspects are far from clear. Smart Partnership has, however, provided an opportunity (some cynics would say an excuse) for a great deal of travel to international meetings, and the Prime Minister himself had been to meetings on Smart Partnership in Malaysia and more recently at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe in October 1999. It had taken Lesotho over a year to get things moving in Lesotho after this meeting and the Prime Minister apologized for the delay. The launching of Lesotho’s Hub enabled the Prime Minister and Minister of
Industry, Trade and Marketing a few days later to report at a meeting in
Malaysia that Lesotho’s National Hub ‘was operational and enjoying increased
support from stakeholders’. Formal Sale Agreement of LTC SignedAlthough the privatisation of the Lesotho Telecommunications Corporation had already been provided for in June 2000 by Act no. 5 of 2000, the official sale of 70% shares in what was now known as Telecom Lesotho was the subject of a signing ceremony on Thursday 9 November 2000. The purchaser was Mountain Kingdom Consortium (‘Mountain Communication’ according to some newspaper reports), which will also have the right to enter into the mobile phone business when the present exclusivity period of the sole service provider Vodacom expires in June 2001. The 70% shares were bought for US$17 million (M119 million). The new Consortium, whose Chairman is Vusi Ngubeni, was quoted as having given assurances that it would provide 50000 telephone lines in the next five years, good news (if it can be implemented) for the many people who have been waiting many years for a telephone line, and indeed for those who formerly had a service, but lost it when the lines were stolen. Meanwhile the 12% Vodacom Lesotho (VCL) shares held by LTC was on 29 November sold to Sekhametsi Investment Consortium, a newly formed consortium 100% owned by Basotho individuals and businesses. A representative of the Sekhametsi team, Dr Mphu Ramatlapeng, quoted in Mopheme of 5 December 2000, stated that she believed that the sale would attract investors to the consortium to achieve the required capitalisation. VCL itself was established in 1995 as a joint venture between the Lesotho
Government and the Vodacom Group of South Africa. Textile Industry ExpandsPublic Eye of 17 November 2000 reported a US$100 million (M770 million) investment by a Chinese textile firm, Nien Hsing International part of which was to establish a textile mill to produce fabric and yarn at the Thetsane Industrial Estate. A subsidiary of Nien Hsing, C & Y Garments, was established in 1991 in Maseru, and already employs 2000 workers who produce denim jeans and other casual clothing per month for United States and Canadian markets. It is estimated that the new fabric and yarn factory will initially provide a further 4800 jobs. Of other factories at the Thetsane Estate, CGM Industrial was established in 1987 and now employs 4000 workers producing 40000 denim jeans per day for the United States market. Kiota Electronics was established in 1989 and employs 218 workers who assemble 2400 television sets per day for the South African market. Precious Garments, established only in 1999, already employs 3000 workers who produce 150 000 dozen T-shirts for the United States market. Manufactured goods, which are mainly clothing, are now by far the largest proportion of Lesotho’s exports, and constituted M233 million or 75% out of the total of M312 million in the first quarter of 2000, according to figures published in the June issue of the Central Bank of Lesotho Quarterly Review. The table on the right shows how manufactured goods have grown from less than 50% of the value of exports in 1986 to more than 70% (peaking at 82.4% in 1993) throughout the past decade. This contrasts with the period 1978-80 when diamond exports were more than 50% of the total, and earlier periods when agricultural exports dominated, because there was very little manufacturing industry. The first table is, however, misleading in that it does not allow for the high rate of inflation in Lesotho and therefore exaggerates growth rates. The second table uses the retail price index in October of each year to bring all figures to comparative October 1999 price values. This table shows that the total values of exports and of manufactured goods have indeed both generally increased over a 13 year period, but with growth in manufactured goods set back by periods of unrest as occurred in 1994 and 1998. The drop in total exports between 1989 and 1990 was caused mainly by the sudden decline in wool and mohair prices and the consequent drop in the value of wool and mohair exports. Wool and mohair have subsequently been a small proportion of total exports by value. In the post-Independence period, the dominant sector contributing to
Lesotho’s exports has changed more than once. Exports were initially based (but
at a very low level) on agricultural products, giving way to diamonds which for
the years 1978 to 1980 represented more than 50% of the total by value. However,
with the closing of the Letšeng-la-Terae Mine, diamond exports suffered a
subsequent decline to almost zero, and manufacturing industry became the
dominant sector. Diamonds are, however, again likely to play a significant role
in the export statistics when production resumes at the reopened Letšeng Mine
during 2001. Senior Policeman and Lawyer Die in Shooting IncidentThe Assistant Police Commissioner for Lesotho’s northern districts, Tlhabi
Telukhunoana, aged 42, was found shot dead in bed at his house in Hlotse, on
Sunday 19 November 2000. Beside him, also shot dead, was a friend, Mrs Fumane
Mphutlane. Mrs Mphutlane, herself a lawyer, was the widow of Advocate Mphutlane,
who had been killed in a car crash some time ago. According to Leseli ka
Sepolesa of 30 November 2000, it was believed that Telukhunoana had shot Mrs
Mphutlane and then shot himself. Fight to the Death Between Women in Mazenod Wheat FieldLentsoe la Basotho of 23 November 2000 reported an incident in which two
women fought in a wheat field near the Bishop de Mazenod Secondary School in the
early afternoon of Thursday 16 November. When the matter was investigated, it
was found that ’Makhothatso Kamolane was dead. She was polygamously married and
it was her co-wife (mohalitso), a young woman of about 20 years, who was
arrested and charged with killing her husband’s other wife with an axe and a
stone. Court Martial JudgmentThe Court Martial which had been proceeding for nearly two years, in which 37 members of the Lesotho Defence Force were charged with mutiny, following an uprising in 1998 when they had arrested 28 commissioned officers, finally came to a conclusion at the end of November 2000. Four of the soldiers were acquitted and the other 33 were found guilty. Sentencing took place on 13 December, with two of those found guilty, both lance-corporals, being given sentences of 13 years; three being given sentences of 10 years; four being given sentences of 7 years; six being given sentences of 6 years; 13 being given sentences of 5 years; and five being given sentences of 3 years. Sentencing the men, the Court President, Colonel Phatuli Lekanyane, said that the sentences were subject to confirmation, in accordance with the Lesotho Defence Act, by the Prime Minister, Pakalitha Mosisili, acting in his capacity of Minister of Defence. All those found guilty were also reduced to the ranks (although in fact none had a rank higher than sergeant) and were to be ‘discharged with ignominy from the defence force’. All who had been convicted had to hand over their military uniforms immediately after sentencing, a matter which caused some comment from one of the defence lawyers, who thought that this should not have been done until the sentences were confirmed. Not all of the acquitted soldiers gained their freedom. Corporal Paulosi was rearrested and charged with looting and participating in the burning of the houses of Cabinet Ministers in September 1998. The sentencing of soldiers by this and a parallel Court Martial earlier in
the year 2000 meant that for the first time, Lesotho had soldiers serving a long
sentence. In the absence of a Military Prison, the Maximum Security Section of
the Maseru Central Prison was designated to be the place where the soldiers
should serve the whole or part of their sentences. A 68-page Lesotho Government
Gazette Extraordinary was also published on 20 December 2000 containing Lesotho
Defence Force (Imprisonment and Detention) Regulations. Statistics Released on the Impact of Free Standard One Primary EducationA speech in Parliament by the Minister of Education, Mr Lesao Lehohla, was reported in The Mirror of 29 November 2000. The Minister reported that the number of Standard One pupils had risen to 117048, compared with 67777 the previous year, an increase of 72.7%. There were 1284 primary schools in Lesotho, and the Ministry had managed to build 154 additional class rooms, 21 offices and 330 toilets, as well as to place 57 tents in suitable places, while 21 tents were still being installed. Simple arithmetic shows that one additional class room had been provided for each 320 additional children, and even with tents, there must have been far more overcrowding than previously. The number of new teachers was not given, but it seems it was not many, because the Minister reported that the Ministry currently has 466 vacancies for teachers. Although this was not in the Minister’s speech, there has been much concern in educational circles that the output of primary teachers from the Lesotho College of Education (formerly the National Teacher Training College and the only such institution in the country) has been insufficient in recent years to replace natural attrition, let alone make an impact on the proportion of qualified primary teachers, which has been consequently declining. The Minister admitted that problems had been encountered, but that the
Ministry was determined to get things right. In particular, it was most
important for parents to register children in time, so that correct budget
allocations could be made for each school. High Court Judgment Supports Makhakhe Faction of BCPA judgment on 30 November 2000 by Mr Justice Tšeliso Monaphathi, granted an
interdict applied for by the National Executive Committee of the Basutoland
Congress Party barring members of the Molapo Qhobela faction from entering BCP
premises in Maseru. The interdict follows an earlier court ruling which
recognised the NEC under Tšeliso Makhakhe as the legitimately elected NEC of the
BCP. The affected premises are the BCP’s old office on ground south of the
traffic circle, the party office adjoining Casalis House near the Maseru Market,
and the old printing works site near the Maseru railway station, which the
Makhakhe faction wished to turn into a business complex. Central Bank Documents Problems in the Electricity SectorThere had been rumours for some time that all was not well in the Lesotho Electricity Corporation (LEC), and that electricity from the ’Muela Hydropower Plant (MHP) was more costly than that imported from South Africa. The true situation was described in some detail in the Central Bank of Lesotho Economic Review for November 2000. Prior to the construction of MHP, almost all of Lesotho’s electricity had been imported from the Electricity Supply Commission (ESKOM) of South Africa. MHP took over in December 1998 as LEC’s main supplier of electricity. MHP is now responsible for the generation and transmission of electricity, while LEC is still in charge of electricity distribution. MHP is a component of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, incorporated in what was otherwise purely a water supply project at the request of Lesotho. The feasibility studies had indicated that MHP would be viable only if funding was based on concessional loans. However, one of the project’s major sources of concessional funding withdrew from participation, citing irregularities in the tendering process. The project then had to be financed using commercial loans, and the tendering fiasco resulted in delays which added to the costs, because the water delivery system was in place before the power station was complete, resulting in the need to construct an expensive by-pass at ’Muela for the initial few months until MHP came into operation. The outcome of this was that the cost of electricity from MHP was significantly higher than from ESKOM, resulting in a dispute between MHP and LEC, which argued that it could not afford to buy MHP electricity. It would either continue to buy from ESKOM or would have to increase tariffs. To avoid the damaging effects of increased tariffs to the economy, government initiated a financial restructuring programme for the MHP, taking over 80% of outstanding ’Muela debt to ensure that the plant operated as a commercially viable entity able to supply electricity at competitive rates. Unfortunately the problems of LEC have not been confined to MHP and its
problems. The Central Bank considers that LEC’s own financial and management
difficulties constitute even greater problems, and speaks of overstaffing, poor
morale, mismanagement and ‘most importantly’ the breakdown of LEC’s billing
system in 1997. A team of experts, known as the Interim Task Management Force
was to be employed to tackle the financial and operating inefficiencies of LEC.
Institutional reforms were necessary if the planned privatisation of LEC was to
be successfully carried out. New Book Explores the Role of Gender in Lesotho HistoryA new book which became available in Lesotho in December is ‘This matter of women is getting very bad’: gender, development and politics in colonial Lesotho. Written by Marc Epprecht, and published by the University of Natal Press, the book derives ultimately from the author’s 1992 thesis, accepted for the PhD degree at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Ten chapters explore the role of women from the early nineteenth century until Independence. It uses sources such as the Deschatelets Archives in Ottawa, and from files deposited by colonial officers at Rhodes House, Oxford, which together with Public Record Office files in London result (together with some interviews) in the author providing a sympathetic portrait of Paramount Chieftainess ’Mantšebo. In relation to her often alleged involvement in medicine murder, the writer is unable to find evidence in colonial records. ‘Logic seems to exonerate her’. The book is particularly illuminating on the role of women in the Catholic church from the 1930s when the Canadian oblates took over. It documents the oppressive nature of the Canadian oblates’ ideals of ‘proper’ female behaviour, ideals which Bishop Joseph Bonhomme (who arrived in 1933) was quick to uphold. For example, when he discovered in 1936 that a Sister of the Holy Cross had had the audacity to drive a motor vehicle, he had her transferred out of the country, writing to her: ‘I would never have thought that the dignity of a sister would allow her to be the driver of a motor car. I will never permit that in my vicariate’. Bonhomme was however, in other ways, a reformer and even radical, promoting social action through the Catholic Economic Association, which had been founded by the very first Canadian missionary, Odilon Chevrier, soon after his arrival in 1923. Its anti-capitalist rhetoric reflected in the newspaper Moeletsi oa Basotho (a far cry from its later anti-communist stance) brought about vociferous complaints from European traders. Stranded in Canada during the Second World War, Bonhomme returned to Lesotho in 1945, and then attacked not only traders, but also the migrant labour system and the personal merits of the colonial administrators. The Canadian government was approached in 1946 to have its ‘immoral’ and ‘unbalanced’ citizen removed. However, it was the Vatican who finally removed him along with his more radical oblate supporters. Subsequently, as has been documented in a thesis by Thérèse Blanchet-Cohen, Bonhomme was discovered to have been covertly running businesses in Quebec using funds intended for the Lesotho Catholic mission. Epprecht rather curiously makes no mention of this, perhaps because it is irrelevant to his gender theme. However, the fact that the businesses collapsed and his successor, Bishop Des Rosiers was left with a bankrupt diocese is of some historical importance. Because Epprecht had access to rich source material on the Catholic church, its affairs are more widely reported than those of other denominations. However, if there is unevenness in coverage, these are in part compensated by fuller reportage of such matters as the rise and fall of the Home Industries Organization of 1945 50, and an interesting account of the role of women in the rise of political consciousness in Lesotho. Women (except for a handful who qualified as taxpayers) did not have the vote in the 1960 election. In 1965, there was universal adult franchise, and the Basutoland Congress Party, which had been expected to win, in fact lost to the Basutoland National Party. Some commentators attributed this to the conservatism of women who were the majority of the electorate. However, the author provides a detailed discussion which rejects this as the likely cause. He also thinks that the BCP leader’s well-known womanizing was not a major factor. The causes might be more likely to be found in the BCP’s opposition (at least until 1962) of women’s franchise, sometimes expressed in ‘naked misogynist language’. Another vote-loser for the BCP could have been the Catholic media, who not only reported the BCP as sexists, but also made much of wild talk by some BCP members against church institutions, and particularly against Anglican and Catholic nuns. The Catholic Ladies of Saint Anne (Ma-Santa Anna) provided a distribution network for the 15 000 copies per week of Moeletsi oa Basotho (then the paper with the largest readership), and their role in helping the BNP to win marginal seats is regarded as significant. The book is illustrated by a number of old photographs of Catholic women’s
activities from the Deschatelets Archives and, for the later period, photographs
supplied by R. F. Weisfelder of BCP and MFP women at political rallies. This
provides an imbalance in that other denominations are not represented for the
earlier period, and other political parties (particularly the BNP) are not
represented in the later period. However, these pictures are in themselves
useful documents from past times. Not so, the book’s cover picture, which is
uncaptioned and almost certainly depicts women from a part of Africa far removed
from Lesotho. Death of Lawyer ‘G. G.’ NthetheA well known lawyer, Advocate Goitsemang Gamoga Jacob Nthethe, died at the age of 54 on 6 December 2000. ‘G. G.’ Nthethe was born in South Africa, but educated in Lesotho, qualifying with a LLB from the National University of Lesotho in 1980. After a period with Government, he had set up his own firm of G. G. Nthethe & Co. which was located at Speedy Shopping Complex in Lesotho. He is survived by his wife, three sons and a daughter. G. G. had been an active football supporter and was President of Bantu
Football Club in Mafeteng. It was during his role as mediator in a dispute
involving two other teams, Balefe of Mokhotlong and Rovers of the National
University of Lesotho that he had met with a serious road accident in April
2000. This had led to injuries which eventually resulted in his death. As a mark
of respect to Nthethe, football fixtures were cancelled on the day of his
funeral in Mafeteng. Press Reports Corruption Allegations at NULIn a lead story in its issue of 15 December 2000, Public Eye reported action at the National University of Lesotho by members of the Lesotho University Teachers and Researchers Union (LUTARU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) who had demonstrated and then petitioned the Vice-Chancellor with a dossier of complaints of fraud and corruption relating to the office of the University’s Bursar. The complaints included allegations that payments were made to firms in excess of submitted invoices, and that there had been widespread misuse of financial and human resources at the University. In particular, although the subvention to the University had increased by 20% in the past four years, this had not been reflected in increases in staff salaries. Those presenting the petition were Dr Francis Makoa of LUTARU and Mr Thabo Letele of NASU. The petition was received by Dr Nqosa Mahao who was Acting Pro-Vice-Chancellor, there being at the time no Vice-Chancellor. The Acting-Vice-Chancellor, Dr Thikhoi Jonathan, was absent. Mahao, as a leading member of LUTARU, had in the past been at the forefront of LUTARU activism. He promised that the university would carry out necessary investigations and take appropriate steps. Amongst those particularly attacked by placards was the Bursar, Mr Matsobane
Putsoa, currently on sabbatical leave, and the Acting Bursar, Mr John Jane
Sekoere. In relation to Sekoere, placards had referred to his luxury car and to
a trip to Bangkok made by his wife. The Public Eye reporter, Thabo Motlamelle,
interviewed Mr Sekoere, who stated that he had bought his white Mercedes Benz
second hand in 1994, using his Audi in part-exchange. He confirmed that his wife
was a hawker who had been to Bangkok twice to buy clothes and that some of the
toyi-toying demonstrators were wearing clothes they had bought from her, but had
not yet fully paid for. His wife was also an Assistant Registrar at the
university. Army Plane Crashes at MokhotlongThree members of the Lesotho Defence Force sustained minor injuries and seven
others were unhurt when a plane of the LDF Air Squadron crashed in poor weather
at the Mokhotlong Airoprt on the morning of 16 December 2000. It careered off
the runway and crashed into Morojele’s store on the edge of the airfield. The
plane was one of two Spanish CASA C.212 Aviocar 300 troop carriers operated by
the Air Squadron, and was badly damaged in the crash. Death of Italian Businessman ‘Pino’Mario Giuseppe Florio, generally known as ‘Pino’, died in a Johannesburg Clinic on Sunday 17 December after a long illness. He was believed to be about 53. Pino had lived in Lesotho for over 20 years and for many years managed Lesotho Hotels, a group which included the Hotel Victoria in Maseru, as well as the Molimo-Nthuse Lodge, the Senqu Hotel in Mokhotlong, the Sekekete Hotel in Maputsoe and the Golden Hotel in Mafeteng. He was also a diamond dealer, owning the Machache Cutting and Polishing Company. At times a controversial character whose business deals sometimes led him
into trouble. He was for example deported during the time of the military
government. In 1998, he played a role in helping to feed the demonstrators at
the Palace Gates. This was rewarded by his hotel being untouched during the
looting which followed SADC military intervention, although the hotel’s bottle
store was too much of a temptation to escape attention during the period when
anarchy reigned. Demobilisation of 500 Soldiers becomes Political IssueThe ‘secret’ plan to demobilise in 2001, some 500 soldiers, or about one-quarter of the total strength of the already reduced Lesotho Defence Force, attracted comment by opposition political parties and the press in December. The Setlamo Political Alliance (representing a number of the main opposition political parties) called a press conference at which it condemned the plan as an action ‘which is likely to seriously impact on the peace and stability of this country in a negative manner’. The full text of the statement was published in the BNP newspaper Mohlanka of 8 December 2000. The Lesotho Foreign Minister, Tom Thabane, interviewed in the morning Seboping programme on Radio Lesotho, denied that the plan was secret, and admitted that because the government did not know how to implement the plan, it had sought advice through the United Nations Development Programme, who had provided two specialists with experience of restructuring or dissolving armies in countries such as El Salvador and Costa Rica. These specialists were Mr Sam Amoo from Ghana and Mr S. Balde from Denmark. As reported by Public Eye of 22 December 2000, a paper circulating in the streets of Maseru and purporting to be from the armed forces, called on all Basotho to ‘forcefully expel Ghanaians, Nigerians and Danish citizens’ from the country if the government went ahead with its demobilisation plan. Some observers feared that the demobilisation of so many persons familiar
with the use of arms would exacerbate criminal activity, former soldiers already
being suspected of many incidents of violent crime. Hailstorm Devastates Crops in Roma ValleyA hailstorm of 15 minutes duration on the afternoon of Christmas Eve devastated crops and fruit trees along a stretch of the Roma Valley about 5 km long and a kilometre wide. Amongst areas affected were Thoteng and Mafikeng villages, where plastic bowls left outside houses were pierced by the hail. On the National University of Lesotho campus, cars were damaged, and rain gauges smashed. The largest stone measured was 41 mm in diameter, and stones of 30 mm diameter or more were common. A number of birds in flight were brought down by the hail and were found after the storm amongst the debris of leaves from trees which covered the ground. As far as the campus was concerned, in terms of damage and the size of the hail, it was the worst hailstorm for a period of at least 35 years. Following the hail, local chiefs in Roma gave out instructions to their
subjects that to avoid further hail, they should not weed their fields, gather
wood or water (even from village taps), nor hang out washing between the hours
of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Apart from on the university campus, these instructions
were generally observed, no one wanting to incur the wrath of their neighbours
should another hailstorm visit the area. Inflation Drops to 6.4%Lesotho’s published Consumer Price Index for October 2000 became available in December. The CPI is at present based at 100.0 in April 1997, and it rose to 127.8 in October 2000, compared with 120.1 a year earlier, representing an inflation rate of 6.4%. This compares with an inflation rate of 6.8% between October 1998 and October 1999. The annual inflation rate for October 2000 is the lowest October figure since 1971. (For a detailed retrospective view of inflation, see the chart in Summary of Events in Lesotho for the First Quarter of 2000). The recent downward trend in inflation may not be maintained unless the
recent steep rises in fuel prices are reversed. Local Assests Requirements Relaxed for BanksBanks in Lesotho have for a long time been required to keep the majority of their assets in Lesotho. A consequence has been that, with relatively few lucrative investment opportunities, they have been able to offer very poor interest rates to investors compared with commercial banks in South Africa. A consequence has been than a significant number of citizens and residents keep the bulk of their savings in banks in Ficksburg and Ladybrand in South Africa. The proportion of assets which financial institutions had to keep in Lesotho
was 85% in 1981, but was lowered to 60% in 1998. By legal notice published on 26
December 2000 in a Lesotho Government Gazette Extraordinary, the proportion was
further reduced to 40%. The notice states that the change is part of a move by
the Central Bank away from direct controls towards more market-based policy. Steps taken Towards Implementing Local GovernmentA serious deficiency over decades has been the absence of any representative system of local government in Lesotho’s urban areas, save for Maseru which in the past had had an elected City Council. The Local Government Act 1997 makes provision for Municipal, Urban, Rural and Community Councils, but with an emphasis on Municipal and Urban Councils. Soon after its enactment, the then Minister for Local Government, Pakalitha Mosisili, had announced that Government intended introducing Local Government before the end of its term of office. However, when its term of office expired early in 1998 this had not been achieved, and since then a period approaching three years had elapsed without further progress. The Ministry of Local Government suffered setbacks in 1998 when its offices were burned, but by 2000 had recovered sufficiently to make some tentative moves under the old Urban Government Act 1983. An Urban Board for Semonkong was created under this Act during 2000, and at the end of the year notices were published in a Lesotho Government Gazette Extraordinary of 29 December 2000 indicating the intention of establishing further Urban Boards in the district headquarters towns of Butha-Buthe, Hlotse, Teyateyaneng, Mafeteng, Mohale’s Hoek, Moyeni, Qacha’s Nek, Mokhotlong and Thaba-Tseka, and also in the town of Maputsoe. The notices simply listed the villages which were to be included in the Urban Board Area in each case and made no reference to the gazetted urban boundaries of the towns. Meanwhile the capital city itself was without local government. The term of office of the elected Maseru City Council had ended in 1999, when there would normally have been elections. Its period of office was briefly extended by the Minister of Local Government, but when this expired, Maseru no longer had a Council. Apparently it was expected that the Independent Electoral Commission would organize new elections, but it seemed that it was far more concerned with the repeatedly postponed national electoral process than to get involved with local elections. In the absence of a Council, an Interim Town Clerk, Mr Paul Qobo, was responsible for affairs that would normally be those of the City Council. Thus at the end of 2000, there was the odd situation that there was local
government in just one of Lesotho’s urban areas, namely Semonkong, a settlement
which was not even one of the district headquarters. South Africa Investigates Consequences of Abolishing Border Controls with LesothoFormal border controls between Lesotho and South Africa were instituted in 1963 at the height of apartheid, and today remain a major irritation. For example, at the Maseru Bridge Border Post travellers are often kept waiting for several hours as long queues form to complete border control formalities. The South Africa Department of Home Affairs has, however, recently initiated
research into the practical consequences of allowing an open border. This is
reported in an article by Professor David Coplan of the Department of
Anthropology, University of the Witwatersrand (‘Unconquered territory: narrating
the Caledon valley’, Journal of African Cultural Sudies, vol. 13, no. 2
(December 2000)). According to Coplan, everyone in the Caledon (Mohokare) valley
on both sides of the border would like border controls removed to enable them to
work and trade without hindrance, restoring the situation to that which
prevailed in the period 1870 to 1930, which was the most prosperous era in the
valley’s history. Central Bank Publishes Latest Economic and Financial IndicatorsThe Central Bank of Lesotho Economic Review for December 2000 published the latest Economic and Financial Indicators for Lesotho. Of these, perhaps the gloomiest is the Gross National Product per capita, which is recorded as having dropped by 10.6% in the riot year of 1998, dropped again by 4.4% the following year and is projected to show a further drop of 2.8% in the year 2000. Government budget balance is shown as a deficit equivalent to 2.9% of Gross Domestic Product in 1998, deficit equivalent to 1.6% of GDP in 1999 and projected as a deficit equivalent to 4.3% of GDP for the year 2000. The sectoral accounts show agriculture to be fairly stagnant with a 0.5% drop in 1998, a 4.0% rise in 1999, but a projected 3.2% drop in 2000. The construction industry dropped 12.0% in value in 1998, but was 7.7% up on the 1998 figure in 1999 due to reconstruction following the riots. In 2000, the projected rise is 1.0%. Service industries, like agriculture are relatively lack-lustre, but less subject to the vagaries of the weather than agriculture, they have overall growth rates of 0.8% in 1998, 0.5% in 1999, and a projected 1.2% in 2000. The best sectoral growth rate is shown by manufacturing industry, projected to rise by 9.0% in 2000, although as a result of the 1998 riots, it was down 3.3% in 1998 and down another 1.5% in 1999. Lesotho’s official foreign reserves, once a matter of little serious concern because they were boosted by aid projects, are now dwindling. In 1998 they were equivalent to 9.8 months of imports. By 1999, they had dropped to 8.4 months, and for 2000, they are projected at just 7.0 months of imports. [updated to 31 December 2000] |
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