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SUMMARY OF EVENTS IN LESOTHO Volume 12, Number 1 (First Quarter 2005) |
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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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First Woman Commissioner of Police Appointed Journalist Rankolopane Letsoara Retires Bleak New Year for Many Factory Workers Lesotho Bank and Standard Bank introduce Maestro Card Libya to Help Redevelop the Sanlam Shopping Centre Site Phakiso Molise back behind Bars King Appeals for Prayers for Rain; Devastating Rains Ensue Patient Murdered at Queen Elizabeth II Hospital Ombudsman's Report on Queen Elizabeth II Hospital Reveals Horrific Conditions Kao Mine Proposals Discussed at Stakeholders' Workshop
Four Letseng Diamonds Raise
$8 million; Public Eye produces Monday edition Leseli FM Broadcasts from Lesotho Soil Pension Payouts Proceed More Smoothly LCD Wins Koro-Koro By-Election Suzan-Lori Parks' Venus Performed by NUL Students One Third of Local Government Electoral Divisions Reserved for Women Motjoli's Review makes its Debut Minister of Finance Presents Budget for the 2005/06 Fiscal Year Anglican Clergy in Bitter Dispute with their Bishop Roma Chief has Stamp Confiscated Lesotho Postal Administration Releases Stamps Depicting Basotho Houses LHDA Releases Controlled Floods from Dams New UNDP Resident Coordinator Arrives Prime Minister Backtracks on Compulsory Retirement of Soldiers at 45 High Profile Legal Case Postponed to April Images of Lesotho Exhibition Staged by Transformation Resource Centre COSC Results Marred by Scandal over Leaked Papers St James High School, Mokhotlong, Celebrates 50 Years Lesotho Highlands Water Project Phase 2 Feasibility Study to Proceed Leseli Mokhele publishes Home-grown Short Stories New Publication Documents Changes in Lesotho Bird Species Lesotho Appoints its New Ambassador to Ireland on St Patrick's Day Inflation Rate Lowest Since 1969 Transformation Resource Centre Publishes The Irony of the "White Gold" |
First Woman Commissioner of Police Appointed
For the first time, Lesotho's police force is headed by a woman police
officer. The new Commissioner of Police is 'Malejaka
Evelyn Letooane, and she took up duties with effect from 1 January 2005. There were no women police in the colonial period. The first small
group of women police were trained in 1970 by Pat Roach, formerly of Hampshire
Constabulary in Britain, who at the time was the wife of Lesotho's Commissioner
of Police. The Lesotho Mounted Police
Service annual report 2002/2003 (the most recent available) does not give
clear statistics showing what proportion of the Lesotho Mounted Police Service
is now women. However, of the senior officers, those who get coloured portraits
in the annual report's frontispiece, 4 out of 22 are women. A recent (2004) MA
dissertation at the National University of Lesotho by Konosoang Masupha
analysing directives given by senior female police officers found that 28 out
of 118 senior police officers are women, but was unable to discover the total
strength of the police force from the Records Division. She estimated it to be
about 2 000. The new Commissioner of Police, who is from Leribe District, joined the
Lesotho Mounted Police in 1977 winning the prize as the best recruit of her
year. She is well qualified academically having obtained a BA (Law) from the
National University of Lesotho and an LLB from the University of Natal -
Pietermaritzburg. She became an Assistant Commissioner of Police in 1999 and
Acting Deputy Commissioner of Police in 2004. She is herself married to a
policeman, and they have one child. The former Acting Commissioner of Police, Tsokolo Koro, has now been appointed to a new post as Inspector of
Police. He will head a newly created Police Inspectorate designed to improve
the public image and performance of the police. Journalist Rankolopane Letsoara Retires Rankolopane Letsoara,
a veteran j
ournalist, retired at the end of December 2004. His last j ob had been to edit Litsoakotleng, the newspaper of the
Christian Council of Lesotho. Letsoara was born in Hobhouse in the Free State on Lesotho's western
border. He completed high school in Bloemfontein and subsequently enrolled to
study law in South Africa, but his studies were interrupted when he left South
Africa to join the African National Congress in Botswana. He finally relocated to Lesotho in 1979 and worked for the newspaper Moeletsi oa Basotho rising to become
Assistant Editor under the then editor, Father Frangois Mairot. In 1984 he was
recruited to the Lesotho News Agency and received formal training in
journalism. He acquired a reputation as a versatile reporter, able to report on
any subject. In 1988 he received a trophy from the International Olympic
Committee for being the best sports reporter in Lesotho for that year. Bleak New Year for Many Factory Workers As had long been predicted the ending of the Multifibre Agreement on 1
January 2005, coupled with the declining value of the dollar against the loti,
was likely to have a serious impact on the Lesotho textile industry. Five
factories closed in December with a loss of 5 350 jobs, the biggest losses
being at T. W. Garments which employed 2 000 workers and Lesotho Haps which employed
1 300 workers. These closures followed closure of two factories earlier in 2004
when 1 500 jobs had been lost. Some 17 other factories had retrenched workers,
and at a press conference on 14 January 2005, the Minister of Trade &
Industry, Mpho Malie, announced that in all more than 12 000 textile and
clothing workers had lost their jobs since June 2004. Apart from the losses to
workers, Government itself was losing some M17 million per month in revenue as
a result of the closures and job losses. Although the impact of the ending of
the Multifibre Agreement was being blamed by some for the factory closures, it
seems that the main immediate reason had simply been a cashflow problem. The
loti/dollar exchange rate was to blame. It was now at about $1 = M5.80 whereas
in December 2001 it had been at the far more profitable level for exports of
about $1 = M12.00. In a response to the crisis, a high level US-sponsored delegation of 10
persons was formed led by the Minister of Trade & Industry, and including both
the US Ambassador to Lesotho, Mrs June Carter Perry and also the Ambassador of
Lesotho to the USA, Ms Molelekeng Rapolaki. Significantly, it also included
Macaefa Billy leader of the Factory Workers Union (FAWU). It left Lesotho on 29
January to lobby US congressmen so that the entry of Asian giants into the
clothing industry would not jeopardize Lesotho's exports. On the return of the
mission, the Minister of Trade & Industry gave a press conference on 10 February at which he made a number of points. These
included that buyers were satisfied with the cost of Lesotho clothing, but
because fashion was not static, there was a dire need for Basotho to show
innovation skills. Levi Strauss had promised to increase the number of jeans
bought from Lesotho from the 600 000 units in 2004 to 2.4 million units.
However, there were time frame problems, buyers mentioning that while it takes
28 days for clothes to reach North America from Durban, they could be obtained
from China in 14 days. Moreover, Lesotho also lost time on orders because of
the time lag in getting materials which were not produced locally. The Minister
urged local factories, instead of dealing with the giant retailers in the USA,
to explore potential business opportunities with smaller companies, those with
some 100 to 200 retail outlets instead of many thousands. Relevant to the textile sector was a five-person Indian clothing and
textile delegation which visited Lesotho in February. As reported in Public Eye of 11 March 2005, it found
that inadequate technical skills prevented productivity and hindered quality
management in the production of garments and textiles. Concern was expressed
about the lack of synergy between the Lerotholi Polytechnic and the textile
industry. It was also found that there was a lack of entrepreneurship at top
management level. The mission from India had been given a number of terms of
reference, including to advise and assist Lesotho in respect of the skills
required to establish a fabric knitting mill together with a fabric dyeing and
finishing operation in the country. Lesotho Bank and Standard Bank introduce Maestro Card A long felt need was met from the beginning of January. Automatic
Teller Machine (ATM) cards issued by Lesotho Bank and Standard Bank (which are
effectively now a single banking system within Lesotho) could only be used on
their own ATMs, and were useless for withdrawing money from ATMs in South
Africa. Conversely, people with ATM cards from outside Lesotho, including many
migrant workers, could only withdraw money from a single dedicated ATM at
Standard Bank in Maseru. The situation has now been rectified, and Lesotho Bank and Standard
Bank customers can now obtain Maestro cards, which not only work on Lesotho
ATMs but also in South Africa and indeed overseas. The new cards, however, come
at a price. Withdrawals from local ATMs cost M2.25 time, but in South Africa,
they cost M15.80 a time from a Standard Bank ATM, and M21.50 at any other
bank's Maestro or Cirrus ATM.
Libya to Help Redevelop the Sanlam Shopping Centre Site As reported in Lesotho Today, the
Libyan Foreign Minister, Mr Abdulrahman Mohamed Shalgum, visited Lesotho on 5
January 2005. His visit was in accordance with strengthened ties between
Lesotho and Libya, Lesotho having had diplomatic representation in Tripoli
since 2001, following which Libya established diplomatic representation in
Maseru.
The ties have
resulted in economic assistance. Libya has already donated 15 tractors to
Lesotho. The site of the former Sanlam Shopping Centre complex has remained
empty apart from a few `container' shops since it was destroyed in the unrest
in September 1998. Libya has now promised to build a new shopping complex on
the site. The Libyan government has also offered to help equip the Air Wing of
the Lesotho Defence Force with additional helicopters. Phakiso Molise back behind Bars
Second Lieutenant Phakiso Molise, the policeman who led the police
mutiny in February 1997, had fled to South Africa, been captured and in 2000
sentenced to 15 years in prison. However, he had escaped from custody in August
2003. In January 2005 he was, however, again in gaol, having been apprehended
in South Africa and handed over to the Lesotho authorities. King Appeals for Prayers for Rain; Devastating Rains Ensue
According to Moafrika of 14
January 2005, King Letsie III had
appealed for the Churches of Lesotho to pray for rain on the three consecutive
Sundays of 16, 23 and 30 January 2005. This was apparently a response to the
fact that although December rains had been good, the first ten days of January
had been extremely hot and dry in the Lowlands. However, even before the first day of prayer, very heavy rains fell in
the Maloti, and four people were drowned when their vehicle was swept away by
the Sehonghong river on 4 January 2005. On 17 January, the day after the churches' first Sunday appeal for
rain, the tarred road between Maseru and Teyateyaneng was washed away at Ha
Souru between the Palace Hotel and Lekokoaneng after a violent storm. It was no
minor washaway. The tarred road was breached by a gap five metres deep and
several metres wide. Traffic on the main north road had to be diverted onto a
much longer gravel road. So severe had been the damage that the principal
engineer of the Department of Roads, Mr Ralph Makafane, as quoted in Lesotho Today of 27 January 2005,
estimated that the repair would cost between M600 000 and Ml million, and that
the work would take some two to three months. In the event, it seems that
financial constraints within the Ministry of Public Works and Transport
prevented repairs being undertaken until after the end of the financial year.
Travellers to TY were resigning themselves to having to wait at least until the
end of April before the road could be reopened. The road to TY was not the only place where damage
was done on 17 January. Heavy rain in Maseru brought rocks tumbling down onto
the inner relief road, Mpilo Boulevard, which is cut into the steep side of a
hill. Some vehicles were damaged and the road was temporarily closed. Severe thunderstorms continued throughout the month.
According to Moafrika of 5 February
2005, a schoolgirl was killed by lightning at Mantsonyane Ha Letuka on 27
January; two women were killed by lightning at'Mahuu near Rothe in Maseru
District on 28 January; and two men and a dog who had sheltered under a tree
were killed by lightning at Peka on 31 January. The Mohokare river which flows
past Maseru was full and it was reported that as many as four corpses had been
seen floating in its floodwaters. Patient Murdered at Queen Elizabeth II Hospital
A
serious lapse of police and prison vigilance occurred on Monday 10 January
2005. As reported by Public Eye of 14
January 2005, a gunman masquerading as a hospital visitor shot dead a patient
at Maseru's main Queen Elizabeth II Hospital. The incident was a sequel to a
feud in Thaba-Tseka where the patient had already been shot and stabbed by the
same gunman on 26 December 2004. The patient had survived, but had been
transferred to the Maseru Hospital for treatment. Meanwhile the assailant had
been arrested on 28 December, but had subsequently escaped from the Thaba-Tseka
prison. Police had not reported that he was again at large, and as a result no
special precautions were taken. Having escaped from prison, the assailant
pursued his adversary to Maseru where he killed him in the hospital.
It is understood that a person
suspected to have been the murderer later gave himself up to the Thaba-Tseka
police.
Ombudsman's Report on Queen Elizabeth II Hospital Reveals Horrific Conditions
A report by the Ombudsman, Sekara Mafisa, on Maseru's main hospital,
Queen Elizabeth II Hospital became available to the press and public early in
January and resulted in much newspaper comment. The report was dated 21
December 2004, although the inspection had apparently taken place in March
2004. There was no explanation for its late release, other perhaps than that
the Ombudsman has no formal publishing unit to report his findings. The report gives a horrific account of the situation at the hospital:
`The basic equipment is just not there.... often times it runs out of drugs and
suppliers are not prepared to assist on account of the poor record of the
Ministry in settling bills. Almost every section is under-staffed and the
current professional personnel is overworked, demoralized, frustrated and
demotivated. The buildings are in an indescribable state of disrepair and the
general surroundings portray a picture of some place other than a referral
health institution situated in the heart of the capital city and entrusted with
the provision of a sound health service.' The report goes on to describe in detail the Pharmacy (drug shortages);
Adolescent Health Clinic (only one nurse); Sexually Transmitted Diseases Clinic
(positions for doctors vacant and just one nurse); and Casualty Section
(insufficient nurses and beds, overcrowded, with no working patients' toilet
and central heating out of order). In the X-ray Department, it was found that there was no working X-ray.
A new machine had been lying on the floor waiting for installation for two
years, but the suppliers would not install it because previous bills had not
been settled. In relation to the Operating Theatre, three out of four sterilizers
were broken, suction units were not functioning, and while there were items of
new equipment, they had not been brought into use because staff had not been
trained to use them. There were just two gynaecologists, one Nigerian and one
Chinese, and the former was overworked because the latter worked strictly only
from 8 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. There are separate reports on the ten wards visited, and serious
deficiencies were found in all of them, almost the only positive point
mentioned being patients' entertainment, because there was a TV set in each
ward. Overcrowding and staffing were the general situation with only one nurse
per shift instead of two, and an even worse situation at night because a single
nurse had to look after two wards. In the Maternity Ward, there was a shortage
of beds and linen, and the resuscitator had been out of order for 4 years. The
operating theatre in the ward was closed because of lack of staff. It is stated
about the mortuary that the `building and equipment need a complete demolition
and replacement'. Recommendations are made in no uncertain terms
relating to the supply of equipment, adequate staffing and management. It is
recommended that the long standing proposal for a new referral hospital be
speeded up. `In a democratic society like Lesotho, a Minister is individually
accountable for the administration of the Ministry he/she is entrusted with....
If he does not rise to the occasion he will undoubtedly be judged as having
betrayed the trust that the public has entrusted in him.' There was no indication of any response to the report
from the Minister of Health, Dr Motloheloa Phooko. In an interview in October
in response to a similarly critical report of the Ombudsman on district
hospitals he had stated that the Ministry worked under severe financial
constraints. On shortages of staff, he had admitted that nurses were leaving
Lesotho for better conditions elsewhere. Moreover, while it was possible to
recruit Cuban doctors who would work on local salaries, foreign nurses could
not be attracted in the same way. Health Sector in Crisis
On the same page of Public Eye of
14 January 2005 which reported on the Ombudsman's report on the Queen Elizabeth
II Hospital, there was an advertisement headed `Medical Positions Available in
the United Kingdom'. It was from a recruiting agency seeking amongst others
general nurses, theatre nurses and geriatric care nurses. `We offer assistance
with registration, obtaining of work permit, organizing of flights, sourcing of
accommodation, meet & greet at airport, and continuous support once in UK'. According to the BBC programme Newshour on 15 March 2005, there are
altogether 12 500 doctors and 16 000 nurses from Africa working in the United
Kingdom, a situation described by the British Medical Association as `immoral'.
The same programme mentioned that some 2 000 doctors from South Africa are
working in the UK and 4 000 are working in Canada. Although not mentioned by
the programme it is known that while some Basotho nurses and doctors work in
the U. K., far more have moved to South Africa. In fact the vacancies left by
many South African doctors and nurses who have moved to U. K. have been filled
by Basotho doctors and nurses. Although precise statistics are not available, informed sources
estimate that out of some 300 Basotho doctors trained over the past half
century, some 50 have either retired or died. Of the remaining 250, there are
only about 15 working directly for the Ministry of Health in Lesotho. Of these,
despite Queen Elizabeth II Hospital having an establishment of 42 posts for
medical officers, less than 10 are Basotho. Just one or two Basotho doctors
work in each of the government hospitals in Hlotse, Mafeteng and Mohale's Hoek,
despite each hospital needing at least four doctors to be fully staffed. In the
other district hospitals at Butha-Buthe, Teyateyaneng, Moyeni, Qacha's Nek and
Mokhotlong there are no Basotho doctors at all. The balance of some 70 posts
has in recent years been made up mainly by some 15 Chinese doctors sent as
technical aid, and since about four years ago, a group of 45 Cuban doctors,
whose passages and salaries were paid for by the Lesotho Government. Both
groups have serious language problems which often means assigning scarce
nursing staff to act as translators. Few of the foreign doctors stay long,
creating problems of continuity. The last of the Cuban doctors left in August
2004, but a newly recruited batch of 22 Cuban doctors arrived in March 2005. Apart from Basotho doctors in government service, there are those who
are in private practice in Lesotho. A head count suggests that there are some
16 such doctors in Maseru, and either one or two in each of the other district
headquarters (and also Maputsoe), the one exception being Thaba-Tseka. The
total number of Basotho doctors in private practice is approximately 30 doctors
in all. The eight mission hospitals also require from 2 to 4 doctors each, but
at the present time there is just one Mosotho working in a mission hospital (at
Scott Hospital in Morij a). The balance of staff in mission hospitals is mainly
made up of Nigerian or Congolese doctors who often work a few months in Lesotho
while they apply for more lucrative positions in South Africa. There are also
in the mission hospitals some devoted staff who stay much longer, either
provided by church organizations or subsidized by foreign governments, such as
Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland, although the numbers of such doctors has
diminished in recent years. Simple arithmetic leads to the conclusion that there
are some 205 Basotho doctors somewhere else other than Lesotho. A few (probably
less than 20 in total) are working in Canada, the United States and the United
Kingdom. The remaining 185 or so are working in South Africa. Thus, over 80% of Basotho qualified doctors have
left Lesotho, and some 75% of Basotho qualified doctors are working in South
Africa. The situation in the nursing profession is no
better. Because of the scourge of AIDS, never has there been a greater need for
nurses, but the reality is that also never have there been so many vacant
positions, particularly for experienced nurses and nurse practitioners. Thus
many rural clinics are without qualified nursing staff. It is estimated that over 70% of qualified Basotho nurses are
working outside Lesotho. Some work in countries such as the United Kingdom
and United States, countries for which recruiting agencies advertise in local
newspapers, but the majority of nurses working outside Lesotho are working in
South Africa. Thus although the Minister of Health is taking much flak from the
Ombudsman and the press for the deplorable conditions which have developed in
Lesotho's health services, it can be seen that he does not have any simple
solutions to some of his problems. Certainly the deplorable financial
management of government health services needs to be addressed, but the unavailability of adequate numbers of
qualified staff is a national emergency. What might be done? It has become evident for some time that the brain drain from Lesotho
is the modern form of migrant labour. It cannot be stopped, as long as other
countries are wealthier and have more resources to pay professional medical
staff. The only appropriate strategy is to train very many more staff, and to
try to get the beneficiary countries to contribute to this training. If South
Africa has taken 185 doctors trained at Lesotho's expense, then it should offer
to train a further 185 at its own expense, or indeed rather more, because it
would be doing so with the full knowledge that many of these additional trained
doctors would be likely also to work in South Africa. Finding enough students qualified to enter medical school would be
another problem. The National University of Lesotho and the National Manpower
Development Secretariat (NMDS) have in recent years between them done very
little to ensure that students are registered for courses leading to employment
opportunities. This has led to large numbers of students registering in
subjects such as Law (several hundred per year) and Urban & Regional
Planning (an annual output comparable to all
the available posts); while key areas such as Science Education and
pre-medical science subjects probably amount to only 10% of the manpower needs.
Students qualified to take science often take other subjects because they
regard science as too difficult and with a high failure rate. However, if the
NMDS is to really do its job, it should tie the majority of its loan bursaries
to areas of manpower need, and if there are insufficient entrants, then it
should support the University's Institute of Extra-Mural Studies so that it
reorients itself into a College of Further Education bridging school and
university, for those who need it, with an extra year enabling them to enter
science at the university. Clearly NUL and NMDS between them can help to
address the problem, although given the length of medical training, even
immediate action is unlikely to have much impact until some 8 years time. The
total length of time can be shortened, however, by reverting to the practice of
the past when the University negotiated with medical schools so that students
could transfer directly after two years and thereby save two years of
government money and at the same time add two years to their working lives. Potential nurses are a rather different problem.
Between 200 and 300 new students have enrolled annually in the Faculty of Law
at NUL in recent years, and many of these have the entrance qualifications for
Colleges of Nursing. The number of places in Colleges of Nursing needs to be
doubled or perhaps even quadrupled. However, this requires careful planning.
Nurse educators in many cases have left to work overseas (one of the most
experienced Nurse Educators at the Roma College of Nursing for example has gone
to work in the UK), and the Colleges of Nursing, while in many cases maintaining
high standards, have real problems if they are attached to hospitals short of
doctors. For example, many hospitals are equipped with operating theatres, but
they have no surgeons. Thus student nurses can hardly gain experience with
post-operative patients. To expand the Colleges of Nursing (the majority of
which are attached to mission hospitals) would require a massive injection of
capital and additional human resources. The beneficiary countries who are now
employing Lesotho nurses ought to be approached and shamed into providing,
such resources. The United Kingdom which is closing its High Commission in Lesotho and
thereby saving a relatively paltry sum might be found, if the calculations are
done, to be actually a net recipient of aid from Lesotho. Not only are some
highly qualified Lesotho nurses and nurse educators working there, but a
significant part of the large number of South African doctors and nurses
employed in UK have been replaced in their home country at Lesotho's expense,
so that Lesotho is indirectly supporting the British health services with a
significant proportion of its some hundreds of expensively trained personnel
working in South Africa. The UK is not the only guilty party. Even more South
African doctors work in Canada. Many of those have also been replaced by
Lesotho medical personnel. HIV/AIDS is a disaster to Lesotho so terrible that almost every family
has already had the experience of one or more of its younger members dying a
painful and lingering death, leaving behind orphans, some of whom die
similarly, whilst others have to be cared for by grandparents often without
financial resources. Between 30% and 40% of persons between the ages of 20 and
50 are now believed to be infected. Never before have qualified medical personnel
been so essential to help control the pandemic and to organize the
antiretrovirals so that 300 000 people who are otherwise terminally ill might
be persuaded that their condition is in fact a manageable disease and that with
appropriate treatment they can live virtually normal lives. Out of the 300 000
who are infected, those receiving antiretrovirals are still only a few hundred.
The other 299 000 will die. When the British Medical Association recently
described the movement of medical personnel from Africa to UK as `immoral',
this may have seemed a strong denunciation. In fact it is relatively mild
considering the enormity of the injustice and consequent human suffering that
the wealthy countries are meting out upon poorer countries. Kao Mine Proposals Discussed at Stakeholders' Workshop
The proposal to establish a major mine at Kao has proceeded to the
point where a massive 3-volume Environmental Impact Statement was submitted in
December 2004 to the National Environment Secretariat as an application for the
required Environmental Impact Assessment Licence. Although the Environment Act 2001 is not yet
operational, environmental licensing under Section 29(2) of the Act has become
an understood procedural route to government approval for a major project of
this kind. The Environmental Impact Statement was presented to a widely
representative Stakeholders' Workshop on Tuesday 18 January 2005. The applicant for the Environmental Licence is Seriousview Trading
whose directors are Chief David Masupha Seeiso and Mr Gerhard A. Potgieter.
Together with Orbit Trading (Pty) Ltd, it falls under the holding company
Lesotho Diamonds Mauritius Ltd, Orbit Trading having secured a Lesotho
Government undertaking that it will obtain a lease for the remaining area of the
Kao Pipe, currently leased to Tumo Tlelai. The whole Kao mining operation will
then be combined under Seriousview (which is currently applying to change its
name to Kao Diamond Mine (Pty) Ltd). The holding company Lesotho Diamonds
Mauritius in turn falls under the Gibraltar-registered Lesotho Diamond
Corporation plc, which is the ultimate holding company. Kao is located in a remote part of Butha-Buthe District, but is
accessible from Lej one on the tarred road to Katse Dam by a 30 km gravel
track, the upgrading of which will be necessary to establish the mine.
Electricity will also have to be drawn from the grid at Lej one. Kao Mine, situated at 2550 metres above sea level, will extract ore
from a large kimberlite pipe as shown on the map, creating during the estimated
lifetime of the mine an open pit or `big hole' some 500 metres deep and about
800 metres across. Kimberlite, the ore which bears diamonds, will be brought
from the pit by huge trucks carrying the ore up a spiral ramp system to the
processing plant located on the north-east of the hole. In order to gain access
to the kimberlite, which is situated within a funnel of roughly cylindrical to
conical shape, even more of the surrounding basalt rock will have to be
removed. This rock will be used to
start a tailings facility dam in the adjoining Mabunyaneng valley to the
south-east of the processing facility. The development, as proposed, envisages a 1400 tons per hour processing plant, where kimberlite will be subjected to primary, secondary and tertiary crushing, using a wet process from which fine tailings (less than 2 mm diameter) will be pumped as a slurry to the upstream side of the tailings facility, while diamond bearing gravel will go to the Dense Media Separation (DMS) plant for concentration. From there, coarse tailings up to 15 mm size will be transported by conveyors to coarse tailings sites on the wall of the tailings facility, while the rest will be passed to the diamond recovery plant for final recovery and sorting, the last stage of which uses X-ray and, to ensure the necessary security, glove box sorting. The mining operation is planned to continue 24-hours a day, 7 days a week for 25 years. Development of the plant is envisaged in three stages, with Stage 3 being reached after some 3 years by which time the production rate will be some 9 million tons of kimberlite a year, providing direct employment to some 402 persons, although a larger number will be employed in the construction phase. Over a 25-year project life, the estimated revenue from the Kao Diamond Project is M28.5 billion, of which operating and capital costs will be about M 14.3 billion (both figures at current prices). Provision is made for a Rehabilitation Fund, funded
by setting aside 70s per ton of kimberlite mined, and to be administered by the
National Environment Secretariat, the Commissioner of Mines and Seriousview. Up
to 10% of this fund will be spent annually, with the balance used for
rehabilitation when the mine closes. Rehabilitation measures proposed include
vegetation of exposed areas including the wall of the tailings dam. The Environmental Impact Statement identifies three
primary environmental issues, of which the first is the social impact of
resettlement and appropriate compensation for the 79 people (30 households) who
live in the Mabunyaneng valley in the village of Tiping. Their village will be
completely buried by the tailings facility. Consultations have been held with
them, as a result of which proposals have been made to relocate them to a new village
site in the Kao valley at Sekiring, 2 km upstream from the present Kao village.
This site also has the possibility of developing new fields to replace those
being lost as a result of the tailings facility.
A second issue is water use, which is a major component of the project,
some 220 000 m3 per month being required. A major water supply dam
will be built on the Kao river, with a concrete 35 metre high dam wall,
designed to be overtopped in flood conditions. Water is extensively used in the
diamond recovery process, even though much of it is designed to be recycled.
For example, although the fine tailings slurry will be pumped to the upstream
side of the tailings dam, as the tailings settle leaving purer water near the
surface, water will be pumped back to the processing plant via floating pumps
on the tailings dam. As far as downstream water is concerned (the Katse
Reservoir is a short distance downstream from Kao), it is considered that the
quality will be improved (the water is at present contaminated by the former
digging activities), except that there will be an unavoidable deterioration for
the initial construction period. The mine will however reduce the total water
flowing into the Katse Reservoir by some 1.6%, a matter which has implications
for the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. The tailings dam itself will grow over 25 years to become an enormous
feature, of volume some 250 million cubic metres and standing over 300 metres
high (more than 50% higher than the Katse Dam) as measured from the downstream
side of the Mabunyaneng stream. The stability of the tailings dam depends on
the relative quantity of fine and coarse tailings and basalt `country' rock and
how they are distributed within or in relation to the dam wall. Ultimately the
dam wall, with final crest at about 2785 metres, will dominate the scene,
towering above and with its wall closely adjoining the `big hole'. The matter
of the stability of such a structure was raised at the Stakeholders' Workshop,
but engineers assured those present that stability was guaranteed by the angle
of the rock fill, and that there was experience internationally with such dams
in mining undertakings in countries such as Chile. A Toe Dam, will be built at
an early stage as an additional precautionary measure against downstream
pollution on the Mabunyaneng. Eventually it will form a part of the main dam. The whole project depends of course on the marketability of the
diamonds and the world diamond price. Since this is denominated in dollars, the
viability of the project is sensitive to the dollar/loti exchange rate which
has fluctuated from about $1 = M12.00 in January 2002 to $1 = M6.00 in January
2005. The project is considered profitable down to about $1 = M5.50, but
thereafter would apparently be marginal unless the De Beers cartel, which
controls diamond prices, deems it wise to allow them to rise. Some comparative figures may be of interest. The Kao development is
expected when fully on stream to produce some 900 000 to 1 million carats per
year, with a target annual production of a million carats. 1 carat = 200 mg, so
5 carats =1 gram, and 1 million carats is 200 kg of diamonds, about 1% of
annual world production. The world's biggest producer of diamonds by value is
currently Botswana's Debswana with 30.4 million carats in 2003 valued at $2.4
billion. Botswana produces about a third of the world's gem quality diamonds. In terms of the ultimate size of the `big hole', the well known Big
Hole at Kimberley is 473 metres in diameter, rather less than the anticipated
800 metres for Kao. However, the Kimberley Big Hole has nearly vertical sides,
because it was excavated before the days of trucks and spiral ramps. The
Kimberley Big Hole finally reached a depth of 1097 metres before being
abandoned in 1914, and by that date 14.5 million carats or about 3 tons of
diamonds had been extracted. It is expected that the total recovery of diamonds
from Kao will exceed this. After abandonment, the Kimberley Big Hole filled up
to much of its depth with water. The same is likely to happen with the Kao `big
hole', although it is not expected that water will reach a level where it will
spill out of the pit.
Four Letseng Diamonds Raise
$8 million;
As if to provide encouragement for the Kao development,
there was an announcement from the Letseng mine in January that four large
flawless diamonds (weighing 76 carats, 112 carats, 106 carats and 72 carats)
had been found there in the space of just six days. They were sent to the
world's most important diamond market in Antwerp and in February it was
announced that they had been sold for $8 million. Meanwhile, as reported in Lesotho Today of 17 February 2005, the new diamond mine at
Liqhobong, a few kilometres north of Kao, will start operating at the end of
March. According to the Chief Executive, Mr Roy Spencer, it will have 75
Basotho employees and is estimated to produce about 200 000 carats per year.
Lesotho PostBank becomes Operational
The first banking facilities available in Lesotho were those of the
Post Office Savings Bank, which opened branches at post offices in the then
seven Lowlands district headquarters towns in September 1891. The Post Office
Savings Bank survived, providing a useful service particularly in relatively
remote areas, until 80 years later it was merged with Lesotho Bank in 1971. At
first the passbook system continued, but as time went on, Lesotho Bank became
less accommodating to its poorer customers, raising the minimum deposit
successively until it stood at M500. Shortly after that, it abandoned passbooks
altogether, requiring customers to use electronic banking and an Automatic
Teller Machine (ATM) card, a difficult requirement for older customers who were
not used to using keyboards. In the meantime, the number of Lesotho Bank
branches was reduced so that even quite important centres such as Morija and
Pitseng were without banking facilities altogether. Responding to these problems, the old Post Office Savings Bank has now
been revived, and with assistance from the NethPost Consultancy from the
Netherlands, the first branches of PostBank became operational in Maseru and
Pitseng in January. A third branch was opened at Semonkong on 9 March 2005.
According to the Director of Finance of PostBank, Mr Mpho Vumbulani, a total of
5 branches will be open by the end of April, and 11 more branches towards the
end of the year. The service will be fully operational when it is installed in
some 47 post offices around the country. In order to open a PostBank account, a
sum of just M45 is needed.
Public Eye produces Monday edition
Lesotho's best selling newspaper, Public
Eye, normally appears dated Friday of each week, although copies are in
fact already on sale the previous day. As from, 31 January 2005, there are now
two issues of Public Eye per week, a
16-page Public Eye on Monday costing
M2.00 and the regular 32-page Friday edition costing M3.50, although street
vendors sell it for a higher price. Until the end of 2004, there had been one
48-page issue of Public Eye weekly.
Another change is that Public Eye's Sesotho
companion newspaper, Mosotho, no
longer appears weekly, and is produced just once a month. Public Eye on Monday
and Mosotho are now apparently produced on
the new web offset press that Public Eye has
installed in Mohalalitoe, Maseru. It has had teething problems and as at March
2005, the Friday edition of Public Eye was
still being published in South Africa.
Archival Materials Destroyed
The circumstances which led to large quantities of
Lesotho's National Archives being abandoned in the floor wells of a house in
Maseru were described in the previous issue of Summary o,fEvents. A small quantity had been rescued in December by
some friends of the archives, one of whom on 3 January 2005 spoke to the
Assistant Government Archivist. He was told that archives staff of the Ministry
of Culture had appraised the materials remaining in the house and found them to
be of no value and that they should therefore be destroyed. Following this, he
alerted both the History Department of the National University of Lesotho and
the Morij a Archives to see whether they could not mount a rescue bid before
actual destruction took place. Two staff of the history department did in fact
visit the Department of Culture asking for directions to the house, and when
they arrived there on a Thursday in February, they found that the destruction
was in progress. The floor wells were being systematically emptied by three
staff and being taken by bakkie to the Municipal Dump, and the historians were
assured there was no point in following the bakkie, because the material was
being set fire to on arrival at the dump. A senior member of the department
inspected the bakkie being loaded at the time and discovered that many
materials on it were of considerable archival value. He removed them and said
that they must not be destroyed, and got an assurance that these ones would not
be destroyed but could be taken to the Department of Culture. It was not clear
whether this actually happened. Faced with a crisis, the four members of the history department
returned to the house with a vehicle on the Saturday, when there would be no
civil servants at work. They filled the vehicle with valuable materials, but
made little impression on the total amount remaining, even though several
bakkie loads had apparently already been removed. The materials taken were
placed in safe keeping at a room on the Roma campus of NUL, and it was planned
to return the following week with Second Year students to mount a larger rescue
bid. Unfortunately lack of funds for transport and other commitments made this
impracticable. At the end of the February, when the house was visited, the
whole floor well area had been cleared and its previous contents presumably
destroyed. The tragedy of the National Archives is that there is statutory
provision for an Archives Commission with responsibility to advise on archival
matters. The Commission existed for over 20 years after Independence and was
then active in drafting archival regulations and trying to seek funds for
better archival services. Members of the Commission, who included academics,
mission archivists and other interested persons were appointed by the Minister
of Culture, and served for five years, after which their periods of office
lapsed. No new appointments have been made since the restoration of democracy
in 1993, so the Commission has de facto ceased
to exist. It was the one body which could have looked after the interests of
the archives, and it could have been revived at any time, but this did not
happen. It could still be revived in terms of the existing legislation at any
time.
Leseli FM Broadcasts from Lesotho Soil
As reported in Public Eye of 4 February
2005, the South African Sesotho
station Leseli FM, is now
broadcasting from a Lesotho transmitter. The new arrangement is apparently with
the blessing of the new Minister of Communications,
Tom Thabane. Leseli FM has a reputation for professionalism which at times
gathers it a greater Lesotho listenership than Radio Lesotho. It is understood
that local radio staff protested at the move. However, the manager of Leseli
FM, Pula-Pula Mothibi was quoted as looking forward to a new era of
co-operation replacing the past when Radio Lesotho had `vilified' Leseli FM.
Pension Payouts Proceed More Smoothly
The first Lesotho old age pensions for persons over
70 were paid out at post offices throughout Lesotho in the first week of December 2004. In some cases the process took a week, creating great
hardship for elderly people who had to spend some days awaiting their turn to
receive the M 150 to which they were
entitled. Many had to travel very long distances, because only post offices and
not postal agencies could pay out pensions. For an elderly person, the nearest
post office is often more than a day's walk, but so scarce are financial
resources that they nevertheless found ways to undertake the journey. By
February, the pension payout process had been smoothed out, and most people
could arrive at a post office and collect their pensions on the same day. The
legal side of pensions was also sorted out by the Old Age Pensions Act 2005 which although not published in a Lesotho Government Gazette Extraordinary until
16 March 2005 was deemed to have come into operation on 1 November 2004. One problem that has arisen with the payment of pensions is that large
sums of money have to be transferred to post offices for the payments. Despite
security measures, M88 000 of money intended to be paid out to pensioners on 1
February 2005, was in fact stolen from the Motsekuoa Post Office in Mafeteng
District by six armed robbers. It is believed that the Lesotho Government is now trying to find ways
of bringing down the qualifying age and increasing the amount of the payout. It
must be aware that in neighbouring South Africa the monthly pension is now
R780, and pensions are payable to persons over the age of 63. Certainly many
Lesotho residents are aware of the substantial difference, and a significant
number have left Lesotho for South Africa, where they have been able to find
ways of obtaining the necessary South African ID which entitles them to a South
African pension. In a recent survey, some 18% of Lesotho citizens admitted that
they also had South African identity documents, this despite the fact that
Lesotho law does not allow dual nationality. It is possible, indeed likely,
that some people have been able to claim pensions from both sides of the
border.
LCD Wins Koro-Koro By-Election
At the by-election in the Koro-Koro constituency on 12 February 2005
resulting from the death of the previous MP, Mofelehetsi Moerane, the LCD
candidate, Ntsaila Ezekiel Ntsaila won
easily with 2168 votes. There were only two other candidates, representing the
National Independent Party and the Patriotic Front for Democracy. They received
respectively 244 and 92 votes.
Suzan-Lori Parks' Venus Performed by NUL Students
Saartj ie (Sarah) Baartman, a Khoesan woman with an exceptionally large
posterior was lured to London where she was put on display in 1810 in a freak
show as the 'Hottentot Venus'. In 1814 she was taken to Paris and exhibited by
an animal trainer, dying there 15 months later, after which her remains
including her genitals were preserved and displayed at the Musee de 1'Homme in
Paris until the mid1970s. This sordid exploitation and humiliation only ended
when Saartjie Baartman's remains were returned by France to South Africa and
given a decent celebrity burial there on International Women's Day in 2002. The English Department of the National University of Lesotho is
currently hosting a Fulbright Visiting Professor, Katt Lissard, from the State
University of New York and one of her first activities has been to work with a
colleague Rethabile Malibo to direct an edited version of a recent play by the
Afro-American playwright, Suzan-Lori Parks, based on the life of Saartj ie
Baartman. 14 students from NUL, about half of them majoring in Theatre and
Drama, formed the cast, and the performances on 23-24 February 2005 were held
in the University's Moot Court, appropriate because at the time of Baartman's
London appearance an action was taken to determine whether her exhibitioner
should be sentenced under England's anti-slavery law. In the performance, Saartjie Baartman was played by 'Matumahole
Phafane, suitably padded to reproduce a hint of Baartman's steatopygy. The play
with its Greek chorus-like presentation brought out the emotions of a woman
bewildered by unfamiliar surroundings, and by spectators who ranged from
voyeurs to those sympathizing with her plight. The performance co-hosted by
the English Department and the United States Embassy in celebration of
African-American history month, provided the audience with a thought-provoking
glimpse of a squalid episode in the past history of race relations.
One Third of Local Government Electoral Divisions Reserved for Women
One of the puzzling requirements in the Local Government (Amendment) Act 2004 was
a new provision that not less than a third of seats in any council shall be
reserved for women. This was further elaborated in the Local Government Elections (Amendment) Act 2004 which stated that
every third electoral division was to be reserved for women. The proposed
mechanism became clearer in the Local
Government Election (Declaration of Electoral Divisions) Notice 2005 published
as a Lesotho Government Gazette
Extraordinary on 14 February 2005. The Notice
issued by the Independent Electoral Commission lists the 128 different
Councils and for each lists (with numbers not names) 9, 10 or 11 electoral
division, the one exception being for the Maseru City Council for which there
are 13 electoral divisions. In each case, the third, sixth, and ninth (and in
the case of Maseru, also the twelfth) electoral divisions are marked `Reserved
for Women'. The implication of this is that only women
candidates can be nominated for these reserved electoral divisions, although
for the remainder, it appears that both men and women can stand. In the
reserved divisions, a man cannot stand for election, and consequently a voter
cannot elect anyone other than a woman candidate. The Local
Government Elections (Amendment) Act 2004 created some awkward situations.
Whereas in Community Council areas with 9 electoral divisions, clearly not less
than a third of those elected will be women, in those with 10 or 11 electoral
divisions only 3/10 or 3/11 of those elected must be women, each fraction being
clearly less than a third. The same is true of Maseru where 4/13 is also less
than 1/3. Even in the Council areas with 9 electoral divisions, it does not seem
that the requirement of the Local
Government (Amendment) Act 2004 that `not less than one third of the seats
in a council shall be reserved for women' will be met, because each Community
Council also has `not exceeding 2 gazetted chiefs who shall be nominated by
other Chiefs within a Community Council area'. Quite apart from the problems of
this process, the end result would most likely tip the balance so that the then
11 member Council (another clause requires Councils to have odd numbers of
members) would have less than one-third women. The Act seems fraught with
internal inconsistencies. The provision for one-third of seats to be reserved
for women has belatedly attracted the attention of politicians. The veteran
politician, Molapo Qhobela, who after several splits now leads just a faction
of the Basutoland African Congress, denounced the setting aside of electoral
divisions for women as `sexual apartheid'. As quoted in Mopheme of 1 February 2005 he regarded the procedure as
inconsistent with the constitution, and disclosed that his party would nominate
male candidates in divisions reserved for women. He challenged the Minister of
Local Government, Pontso Sekatle to cite any country in the world where some
electoral divisions or constituencies were reserved for one sex to the
exclusion of the other. As reported in Mopheme
of 22 February 2005, the Lesotho Council of NGOs was also critical of the
discrimination against men in certain wards. It proposed some alternative
solutions to the requirement that one third of seats should be held by women,
although almost every solution requires a form of discrimination possibly at
variance with the Lesotho Constitution. By the time of its 8 March issue, Mopheme in its lead story was reporting
that most opposition parties were now criticizing the election procedures. Some
criticized the `first past the post' system, but most were concerned at the
discriminatory provisions relating to the 'women-only' electoral divisions,
which in the words of Chief Peete Peete, leader of the National Progressive
Party were `totally unacceptable'. Also joining in the
criticism was the Catholic newspaper, Moeletsi
oa Basotho. In its lead story as early as its 16 January issue, it reported
that the Independent Electoral Commission had called a meeting on 5 January
2005 explaining that there would be electoral divisions where only women could
be elected and that political parties were opposing this. Returning to the
matter in its issue of 20 February 2005, in a strongly worded editorial it derided
the Government (Hona ha se likhetho, ke
mantloane - These are not elections, they're just a children's game) and
accused Parliament of having made a law which, by forcing people to vote for
women in certain areas, contravened the Constitution. This led to Radio Lesotho
on 22 February 2005, as reported in The
Mirror of 2 March 2005, broadcasting extensive criticism of the editor of Moeletsi: `The government says what the
editor has done is seen as "The peak of irresponsibility". Moeletsi is an old respected newspaper.
We ask its editor to cool down, look at both sides of the story'. Moeletsi's editor was not deterred and
in its issue of 27 February 2005 stated on the front page under a heading Li qalile liqaqiso (The explanations
have begun) Polelo ena ea 'muso ha e
hanyetse 'nete e phatlalalitsoeng ke Moeletsi, e mpa e le poboli e etsoang
feela ka khopolo ea hore ho lumaela ka matla le ho tjolomaka ho ka felisa
mahlaba (The government statement does not deny the truth of what has been
published by Moeletsi, but is just a
groaning in the belief that massive grumbling and tossing and turning might
ease the pain). It elaborated on its statement in an editorial in its issue of
8 March 2005: `When Moeletsi prints
the truth in the interests of its readers, some people don't like it. They
fight us....' Although opposition parties were having a field day with the Act, the
reality is that all parties of significance in Lesotho are represented in
Parliament and the opportunity to attack the original Local Government (Amendment) Bill had been there during its long
passage through Parliament. The Second Reading debate had commenced on Thursday
11 September 2003, but had been interrupted by other business. It was only on
Thursday 19 February 2004, when the Bill was being discussed at the Committee
Stage that the Minister of Local Government, Pontso Sekatle, had introduced the
controversial Clause 4, subclause 3 that `Notwithstanding anything in this Act,
not less than a third of the seats in council shall be reserved for women'. At
this point, as reported in the National Assembly Hansard, some of the opposition party leaders such as Dr K. D.
Raditapole, Mr K. A. Maope, Mr H. Tsakatsi and Mr A. C. Manyeli raised
concerns, although interestingly enough no-one then made the point that the
provision might be in conflict with anti-discrimination clauses in the
Constitution. The debate on the clause was deferred until the next day, before
it was finally passed, and the Second and Third Readings of the Bill were
completed on the same day. In the Upper House, the Senate, the Second Reading
of the Bill began on Tuesday 9 March 2004, and the Third Reading was completed
and the Bill passed on 18 March, without (according to the Senate Hansard) any objections being raised at
the Committee stage about the clause reserving seats for women. The problem
with the ensuing Act, and a defect of its original drafting, was that whereas
individual clauses made sense and were passed one after another in the
Committee Stage, overall there were internal inconsistencies which apparently
no-one at the time noticed. The requirements that Councils had odd numbers of
members, not less than one-third women, and at least two gazetted chiefs, and
at the same time (apart from the chiefs) were to be elected created a difficult
conundrum which was only partly solved by the later Lesotho Government Elections (Amendment) Act 2004.
Date for Local Elections Set
A notice published on 15 February 2005 sets the election date for local
government councils to be 30 April 2005 and the nomination days for the
election to be from 29 March 2005 to l Apri12005. A second notice published on
21 February 2005 provides a detailed election timetable, and provides for the
publication of the results and statement of the poll to be on 9 May 2005.
Motjoli's Review makes its Debut
A new quarterly review of `considered opinion and debate about our
society and how it is governed' appeared in February 2005. Setting a new
standard of informed writing, the new periodical in tabloid newspaper format
takes its title from motjoli, the
individual amongst herdboys who exhibits the most leadership talent. In the first issue there are articles by David Ambrose on the National
Archives (taken from the previous issue of Summary
of Events); by Motlatsi Thabane on the veil of secrecy still maintained by
those who were with Clement Leepa when he was killed and his rebellion was
crushed on 3 March 1970; an account by the veteran BCP MP, Ntsukunyane Mphanya,
on his escape to Botswana in 1974; and an interview with Lekhetho Rakuoane,
Chairman of the Parliamentary Reform Committee, on the process of parliamentary
reform.
Minister of Finance Presents Budget for the 2005/06 Fiscal Year
The annual budget speech was made in Parliament by the Minister of
Finance & Development Planning, the Honourable
Timothy T. Thahane on 16 February 2005. It related to the financial year
which runs from 1 April 2005 to 31 March 2006. In his introduction the Minister was generally upbeat about
achievements which included economic growth estimated at 3.4% for 2004, higher
than the average for the southern African region. There had however been a
downturn in the second half of the year driven by uncertainty in the textile
industry. Amongst achievements were free schooling for the first six years of
primary school and the introduction of pensions for the elderly, many of whom
have to take care of the more than 90 000 AIDS orphans. Financial reform was
under way, fraudsters and corrupt officials were being prosecuted, and the
backlog in the production of annual public accounts was being tackled. Amongst
maj or investments in Lesotho was the $100 million Nien Hsing mill for the
production of denim fabric. Four challenges were highlighted. The first was the need to make the
private sector a real engine for rapid acceleration of growth, creation of jobs
and reduction of poverty. In relation to this, views were being exchanged with
Irish authorities on how they transformed Ireland from a rural economy to
a`High-Tec Celtic Tiger' in some 40 years. The Minister noted that Ireland was
now Lesotho's largest provider of assistance.
A second
challenge was HIV and AIDS and the fight against the disease was being scaled
up with international assistance. The third challenge was education, which was absorbing a high
percentage of the budget but failing to yield the social and scientific skills
needed. The pass rate in science and mathematics was very low, yet competence
in these subjects was necessary to form the base of a productive economy. The final challenge was the public service and service delivery, where
there was need for improvements in productivity, efficient service delivery,
good relations with the public and the elimination of corruption. Amongst topics discussed in a wide-ranging speech was the work of the
Commission for Africa, established by Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United
Kingdom. The aim of the Commission to mobilize additional resources for poverty
eradication in Africa was endorsed, and it was noted that amongst initiatives was
one to cancel international debts in poor countries. It was noted that Lesotho has never defaulted on its debt and
that low-income countries, such as Lesotho, which had managed their finances
well, had been overlooked. The proposed budget was for M3 739 million recurrent expenditure and Ml
043 million capital expenditure with an estimated deficit of M249.5 million
equivalent to 2.6% of the Gross Domestic Product. Amongst maj or expenditures announced were an allocation of M702.4
million for infrastructure and related expenditures in relation to the Metolong
Dam on the Phuthiatsana river, a project needed to provide water for the
domestic and industrial needs of Maseru, Roma and other communities nearby. A
roundtable conference of potential financiers for the dam itself would be held
shortly. |
