LESOTHO’S ambassador to Canada, Molise Tšeole, has been fired over a Facebook post criticising the government.

Tšeole was fired on Wednesday, the same day he was found guilty after a virtual disciplinary hearing held last Friday.

Tšeole was informed of his termination by Principal Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Thabang Lekhela. Lekhela said the Tšeole’s termination and recall from the embassy in Canada was with immediate effect.

The letter instructs Tšeole to wrap up his affairs and “report to the Headquarters on or before” May 7.

Tšeole got himself in hot water after he made a Facebook post, on April 13, disparaging the government.

“This is the government of the rich. They see the poor as nothing,” Tšeole’s post reads.

“Now they take all the funds meant to help the people and share them among themselves.”

“There is no buying power, there is no money in circulation.”

The reaction from his bosses in Maseru was as instant as it was thundering.

Six days after that post Tšeole was before a disciplinary panel chaired by the Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Communications, Kanono Ramashamole.

He was accused of “failure to have absolute and undivided loyalty to the constitution and lawfully constituted government”.

Other charges were that he failed “to support and maintain the government of Lesotho according to the constitution and other laws of Lesotho”, “caused damage that brought public service into disrepute” and “wrote and circulated a vexatious statement with malicious intent”.

All charges emanated from Tšeole’s Facebook post.

The disciplinary panel found Tšeole guilty and ruled that he is not fit for office.

“The accused is not fit to continue to represent Lesotho internationally, therefore he must be recalled from the embassy,” Ramashamole said in the judgement.

During the virtual disciplinary hearing, parts of which were heard by thepost , Tšeole is heard questioning the credibility of the panel that tried him.

Tšeole kept having a back-and-forth with Ramashamole throughout the intense hearing
Tšeole told the committee that the proceedings should not be high-jacked, insisting that it should be held in a way that will make him feel satisfied.

“I want to know the reasons you are made the chairman of this committee,” Tšeole asked Ramashamole.

Ramashamole kept telling him that he should allow him as the chairman to speak but Tšeole kept talking.

“Do not interrupt me so that I read the charges for you. Let me work using the proper procedure,” Ramashamole said. But Tšeole kept interjecting.

Tšeole later kept quiet and Ramashamole read the charges.

He however argued that the case should be before the courts rather than the disciplinary committee.

Before Ramashamole could respond, Tšeole said he first had to be sure if the committee would bring justice to him.

“I want to be sure that your court is fairly constituted before anything else.”

Ramashamole tried to respond saying they were following the law but Tšeole said that was not true.

Tšeole said he wanted to be represented by a lawyer.

Ramashamole told him that if he did not allow the hearing to continue he would be denying himself a chance to defend himself.

Tšeole insisted that he wanted a legal representative.

Ramashamole told Tšeole that he would continue with the case despite his objections.

Tšeole’s lawyers, Astute Chambers, demanded that another hearing should be held within 48 hours from yesterday or else they would have “no other option but to approach the courts of law”.

Tšeole has written a separate letter appealing against the judgement, saying Ramashamole ignored him when he made it clear that he was not guilty.

“I was present at the hearing, I was willing to have a fair hearing,” he said.

“Your panel cannot make the decision as if I was absent.”

Nkheli Liphoto

FIVE people were shot dead at a home in Fobane last Saturday night in what is suspected to have been a revenge attack linked to famo gangs involved in illegal gold mining in South Africa.
Two of the victims are relatives while the other three worked for the family.
The family’s four vehicles were also torched.

The police say the assailants were looking for the family head, a 38-year-old man who was not at home during the attack.

The head chief of Fobane, Motsarapane Molapo, told thepost that the family head is an illegal miner in South Africa.

thepost has been told that the attack in Fobane could be linked to an earlier incident in Peka, where one man was shot dead and two seriously injured after being attacked by suspected members of a rival gang.

The three, who are said to be Terene gang members, were in Peka on Saturday to attend the funeral of a colleague who was to be buried on Sunday.

They were attacked moments after they had visited their Terene leader, Tšepiso ‘Mosotho’ Radebe, who lives in the same area.

Sources said the survivors were able to name their attackers to their colleagues who then launched a revenge attack on the family in Fobane.

The group suspected that the head of that family was linked to the group that had attacked their friends in Peka.

Police spokesman, Senior Superintendent Kabelo Halahala, said the police could not connect the two incidents.

He however described the incident as “shocking”.

“We are stunned by the manner in which the incident happened,” S/Supt Halahala said.

“We are struggling to figure out how this happened. This is really shocking.”

He said preliminary investigations have revealed that a group of men stormed a room where the herd-boy was sleeping.

They then allegedly ordered him to wake up the people in the main house. Once in the house, the men demanded to know where the head of the family was.

The answer was that he was in South Africa.

S/Supt Halahala said the assailants also demanded money from the wife but she said she did not have any.

He said they then pushed them out of the room and brutally killed them.

S/Supt Halahala said they found 19 different bullet shells of 5.56mm and 9mm pistols at the scene.

S/Supt Halahala said the assailants were travelling in a Toyota Fortuner and two 4x4s.

He however declined to give further details for fear of jeopardising the investigation.

The Chief of Fobane, Motsarapane Molapo, said the village is still in shock.

He said there had been another murder in the village earlier that Saturday

Majara Molupe

THE Ombudsman has asked parliament to intervene to force the Lesotho Defence Force (LDF) to compensate families of people killed by soldiers.

Advocate Tlotliso Polaki told parliament, in two damning reports on Monday, that the LDF is refusing to compensate the family of Lisebo Tang who was shot dead by soldiers near the former commander, Lieutenant General Tlali Kamoli’s home in 2014.

The LDF, she said, is also refusing to compensate the family of Molapo Molapo who was killed by a group of soldiers at his home in Peka, Ha-Leburu in 2022.

Advocate Polaki wrote the LDF in January last year saying it should pay Tang’s mother, Makhola Tang, M300 000 “as a reasonable and justifiable redress for loss of support”.

The Tang family claim investigation started in February 2022 and the LDF responded that it “had undertaken the responsibility for funeral expenses and other related costs”.

Advocate Polaki investigated whether the LDF could be held accountable for Tang’s death and whether his family should be compensated while the criminal case is pending.

She found that the soldiers were “acting within the scope of their employment to protect the army commander and his family” when they killed Tang.

Soldiers killed Tang in Lithabaneng while she was in a parked car with her boyfriend at what the army termed “a compromising spot” near the commander’s residence.

The three soldiers peppered the vehicle with a volley of shots, killing Tang and wounding the boyfriend.

Advocate Polaki found that the army arranged to pay for the funeral costs and to continue buying groceries and school needs for Tang’s daughter.

The LDF, however, kept this for only four years but abruptly stopped.

When asked why it stopped, the army said “there is a criminal case pending in court”.

The army also said it felt that it would be admitting guilt if it compensated the Tang’s family.

The Ombudsman said “a civil claim for pecuniary compensation lodged is not dependent on the criminal proceedings running at the same time”.

“The LDF created a legitimate but unreasonable expectation and commitments between themselves and the complainant which had no duration attached thereto and which showed a willingness to cooperate and work harmoniously together,” Advocate Polaki found.

“The LDF was correct in withdrawing such benefit in the absence of a clear policy guideline or order to continue to offer such benefit or advantage,” she said.

“However, she should have been consulted first as the decision was prejudicial to her interest.”

She said the army’s undertaking “fell short of a critical element of duration and reasonability”.

Tang was a breadwinner working at Pick ’n Pay Supermarket as a cleaner earning M2 000 a month.

Her daughter, the Ombudsman said, is now in grade six and her school fees alone had escalated to M3 200 per year.

She said an appropriate redress should be premised on her family’s loss of income and future loss of support based on her salary and the prejudice suffered by her mother and daughter.

She said M300 000 is “a reasonable and justifiable redress for loss of support”.

In Molapo’s case, Advocate Polaki told parliament that the LDF refused to implement her recommendations to compensate his two daughters.

The complainant is his father, Thabo Joel Molapo.

The Ombudsman told the army in August last year that it should pay the girls M423 805 “for the negligent death of their father”.

Advocate Polaki said despite that the criminal matter is before the court, “it is established that the Ombudsman can assert her jurisdiction and make determinations on the complaint”.

Molapo, 32, was brutally murdered by a soldier in Peka in December 2020.

Molapo had earlier fought with the soldier and disarmed him.

The soldier, the Ombudsman found, rushed to Mokota-koti army post to request backup to recover his rifle. When he returned with his colleagues, they found him hiding in his house. The soldier then shot Molapo.

The LDF, the Ombudsman said, conceded that the soldier killed Molapo while on duty and that he had been subjected to internal disciplinary processes.

“The LDF is bound by the consequences of the officer’s actions who was negligent and caused Molapo’s death,” she said.

She found that after Molapo was killed, army officers and the Minister of Defence visited his family and pledged to pay his children’s school fees. They also promised to hire one of his relatives who would “cater for the needs of the deceased’s children going forward”.

The LDF, she said, has now reneged on its promises saying its “recruitment policy and legal considerations did not allow for such decision to be implemented”.

Molapo’s father told the Ombudsman that the LDF said “the undertakings were not implementable and were made by the minister at the time just to console the family”.

All the payments in the two cases, the Ombudsman has asked parliament, should be made within three months.

Staff Reporter