Water For Justice

PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY REVIEW MEETING on 15/06/09 at LCN

A team of World Bank consultants is currently in the country in the mission to assess the state of finances of the government of Lesotho paying particular emphasis on the aspects of Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA). Performance Management Framework (PMF) is the tool the Consultants used to solicit information from various stakeholders. This PEFA PFM Performance Measurement Framework has been developed as a contribution to the collective efforts of many stakeholders to assess and develop essential PFM systems, by providing a common pool of information for measurement and monitoring of PFM performance progress, and a common platform for dialogue.

It was for this reason that the consultants have met with different stakeholders to ascertain their opinion in relation to how the government account to public funds. The information provided to the consultants would hopefully be used to feed into the government and donor dialogue. Performance F inancial Management (PFM) has a critical role to play in supporting implementation of policies of national development and poverty reduction.

The LCN team however highlighted some of the crucial instances of where the government accountability and transparency was questioned:

The government unduly delay to pay suppliers

“Ghosts” who get paid
Tendering and awarding of contracts not transparent
Nepotism in the awarding of contracts
‘White color' corruption in government cycles
Collusive practices by public officials
Unavailability of audited reports
Weak oversight bodies
Incapability of the Directorate of Corruption and Economic Offences (DCEO) to combat corruption
Government withhold information due to public