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Don’t rock the boat

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IN diplomacy, as in all interactions, it is not what you say but how you say it that is important.
We are perturbed by the tone of Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili’s letter to King Mswati III in reaction to the decisions of the SADC extraordinary summit in March.

He says Lesotho view “with disdain” the regional bloc’s communiqué after the summit in Swaziland that Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and the Oversight committee “would be charged with the responsibility to monitor the political and security situation” in Lesotho during the election.

He says this will allow “these two SADC structures to gradually gnaw into the very fabric of our sovereignty.”
He complains that SADC gave Ramaphosa and the Oversight Committee “yet another spurious responsibility to conduct a multi-stakeholder national dialogue” ahead of the election.

“With due respect, we find this most unrealistic and absurd. How and where on earth, would anyone have time for this multi-stakeholder dialogue during the campaign period for elections?”

Given the emotive nature of election periods it is tempting to offhandedly dismiss Mosisili’s protests to SADC as mere grandstanding.
Yet on substantial issues Mosisili makes some valid points. Indeed there is no time to organise the multi-stakeholder dialogue. He has the right to push back on decisions he feels undermine Lesotho’s sovereignty.

In fact, Mosisili is at liberty to speak his mind to fellow SADC leaders. That has been the tradition in SADC and it should not change. However, the problem with Prime Minister’s letter is not the issues he raises but how he puts them across.

There is a thin line between being candid and being haughty. One can be forceful without offending. You can be frank but courteous.
We are therefore not surprised that the reaction to his letter has been frosty. Because of Mosisili’s demeanour a gauntlet has been thrown.
Botswana President, Ian Khama, has been uncharacteristically forceful in his reaction to Mosisili. He says if Lesotho feels that SADC’s interventions are undermining its sovereignty then Botswana would withdraw its people serving on the Oversight Committee.
King Mswati, although diplomatic, was equally cold in his response.  He reminded Mosisili that the interventions were meant to help Lesotho in the spirit of brotherhood.

This government has walked this road before and the results have not been good for its reputation. We recall how the government fought tooth and nail to avoid receiving the Justice Mphapi Phumaphi Commission report.
SADC prevailed, leaving the Lesotho government embarrassed. As things stand Lesotho is in no position to be belligerent with the regional bloc.

Indeed, Mosisili should walk back some of the words he used in the letter.
The tenor of the letter has potential to create a diplomatic storm from which Lesotho might not be able to extricate itself.
If SADC has given Lesotho an impossible target then Mosisili must say so without rocking the boat.
SADC has, thus far, been Lesotho’s best friend. Its political support to Lesotho has been tremendous. It has stood with Lesotho in dark times.

Without SADC Lesotho could have been plunged into political and security chaos.
There is goodwill that Mosisili should not squander because we might need it soon.
In his letter the Prime Minister pleads for “restraint” and “decorum” in the regional bloc. Wise words indeed, but we hasten to say he should lead by example by being measured in his communication with SADC.

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Inheritance Bill long overdue

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Elsewhere in this issue we carry a story of how Lesotho’s MPs are now in a stampede to pass a raft of laws in an attempt to unlock millions of dollars in funding for development projects.
The United States government last year said it would not release the funds unless Lesotho passes into law the Administration of Estates and Inheritance Bill and the Labour Bill by the end of this month.

With just two weeks before the March 31 deadline, Lesotho’s MPs have now found themselves in a squeeze.

A delegation from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) was in Lesotho last week to check on progress.

The stampede by MPs to act comes only after the US government threatened to crack the whip by withholding funding.

One of the key demands is for Lesotho to pass the Administration of Estates and Inheritance Bill that will likely improve the welfare of women and the girl child in Lesotho.
For decades, women and girls were at the receiving end of discriminatory practices simply because they were women.

They could not inherit their parents’ wealth, with the customary law favouring sons. Women could not even succeed their fathers under the Lesotho chieftainship law.
The customary laws were patently discriminatory.

We can think of the long running legal wrangle involving Senate Masupha who was the first born child of the late Principal Chief Gabasheane Masupha and first wife Chieftainess ’Masenate Masupha.

Senate argued that a section of the Chieftainship Act denied her the right to succeed to the chieftainship solely on the basis of her gender.
She subsequently lost the case in the Constitutional Court.

The judgment was a devastating blow for the emancipation of women and confirmed that we remained stuck to our patriarchal ways of doing things.

Our courts had over the years backed the discriminatory customary laws by denying the girl child their inheritance.

The Administration of Estates and Inheritance Bill, tabled by Justice Minister Nthomeng Majara, will undo some of this damage. It will abolish a customary law which made males the only heirs of their parents’ late estate.

The law, once enacted, will introduce the female child as an heir even where she has brothers. However, it will leave customary chieftainship inheritance laws untouched.
The law will also introduce the giving out of inheritance to children born out of wedlock when their father dies.

We believe this is a progressive law that was long overdue.

Our question is simple: Did we have to wait for the Americans to nudge us to do the right thing? Couldn’t we have thought of this on our own and implemented it without the US holding a gun over our heads?

Now MPs are under pressure to deliver. If they don’t Lesotho risks losing massive funding that could have been used for development projects.

It is a law that will likely correct a historical injustice against women.

Our simple position is that it was never fair nor just to deny women their inheritance based on their gender. This is a practice that should have been reviewed a long time ago.

Once enacted into law, the government must go on an aggressive education and information campaign to educate the people about the change of law.

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Ousting DPP is not the best way to go

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THERE have been mixed reactions to the coalition government’s bid to oust the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Advocate Hlalefang Motinyane, from her position as we reported last week.
The plan is to move her to a junior post in the Attorney General’s office.

The government has not yet spelled out its reasons for the move.
However, there is speculation that Advocate Motinyane was being punished after she refused to play ball in prosecuting certain individuals in the political arena.
Others have said the reasons have something to do with her professional performance and that she is not up to the task.

Whatever the reasons the government might proffer, we are of the strong opinion that demoting her should not be the way to go. We think such a move will likely not end well.
As DPP, Advocate Motinyane occupies a critical role in the administration of justice in Lesotho. If she resists the ouster, as she is most likely to do, we are likely to see yet another bruising battle in the judiciary.

That will likely hamper the delivery of justice in our courts and create serious discord between the various arms of government.
The authors of our Constitution had the foresight to put in bulwarks against the abuse of office. One such protection clearly says that the DPP can only be removed “for inability to exercise the functions of the office (whether arising from infirmity of body or mind or any other cause) or misbehavior . . .”
If that happens, the King is expected to appoint an impeachment tribunal made up of three members, a chairman and at least two members selected by the Chief Justice from current or former high judicial officers.

The tribunal will then conduct an investigation and report to the King.
It would appear all of these have not been done. Instead, the government is pushing to “demote” the DPP and move her to the Attorney General’s office without her consent.
Given the sensitivity of the matter, we do not think this is the best way to handle the matter. At the present moment, it would appear the government is likely to face a backlash from the public who might conclude that Advocate Motinyane is being victimised.

The lesson is that the government must play by the rulebook if it wants to get Advocate Motinyane out. There must be clear reasons for such action. Despite her perceived flaws, it would not be right to just wake up one day, and acting on one’s whims, decide to push her out. That is plain wrong.

If she is incompetent, the government must establish a tribunal as required by the law to investigate her. Only then can she be pushed out without leaving a sour taste in the mouths of Basotho.

Over the years, we have had a front-row seat as we watched senior judicial officers take on the government as it sought to push them out.
The current Deputy Prime Minister Nthomeng Majara was a victim of such political shenanigans. The results of her bruising battles were not so pleasant.

The coalition government must therefore step back from taking such a disastrous path.
Deputy Prime Minister Majara is in the best of positions to advise the government not to take this route. Previous governments have tried it before and the results were not so pleasant as Justice Majara can testify.

If Advocate Motinyane decides to fight the government’s decision, this will likely hurt the judiciary and stall the justice delivery system in Lesotho.

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Time for a new broom at LMPS

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THE exit of Commissioner of Police Holomo Molibeli last Friday has been met with mixed reactions from Basotho with certain sections of society gleefully celebrating his departure.
Prime Minister Samuel Matekane did not renew Molibeli’s contract despite his fervent pleas for a new term.

There is no denying that under his tenure, the Lesotho Mounted Police Service (LMPS) had become a byword for brutality and incompetence.
It would however be a gross mistake to think that the LMPS will change direction simply because Molibeli is gone. A new boss is not the magic bullet that will fix the LMPS.

What needs to change at the LMPS is the whole culture of policing. The Matekane government will need to metaphorically “burn down” the whole structure and build anew. It will need to reform the LMPS, lock, stock and barrel.

Molibeli alone was not the problem. He simply inherited a system that was rotten.
As the head of the LMPS, Molibeli however had a chance to steer the organisation towards a new path, a new culture, which he dismally failed to do.

Instead, what we saw over the last seven years was an escalation in police brutality. The police became notorious for brutalising suspects to extricate confessions. That was Molibeli’s biggest flaw.

As a political appointee, Molibeli also appeared too overzealous to please his political masters. He was in charge when Tšeliso Mokhosi was brutally tortured in 2017.
A video of Mokhosi being assaulted by his officers did a lot to damage the image of the police in the eyes of the public.

We are not surprised that the LMPS has had to deal with mounting lawsuits from tortured suspects.
Molibeli was also in charge when a student at the National University of Lesotho was shot and killed during a protest. The police officer who pulled the trigger has still not been prosecuted.

That of course gave the impression that Molibeli was protecting rogue officers.
But perhaps his biggest mistake was when he appeared, together with other security agency bosses, threatening to stop a parliamentary process to oust Matakane through a no-confidence vote.

He had no business dabbling in a political dispute. Molibeli and his two accomplices simply crossed the line.
While all this was going on, violent crime was on the increase in Lesotho, aided by the use of thousands of illegal guns in the hands of criminals. The famo music killings did not subside.

Lesotho now holds the dubious record of being the third most violent country in the world. Molibeli must take a large part of the blame.
There is no doubt that Molibeli’s tenure has been an unmitigated disaster. Yet we would be naïve to conclude that the appointment of a new boss will be the magic bullet that will fix the LMPS.

The new boss will not simply walk in and clean up the mess just because she is now the boss.
The new boss will likely face the same set of challenges that Molibeli had to deal with unless she is strong enough to instill a robust change of culture.

Dr Mahlape Morai, who was appointed acting commissioner last week, only has three months to demonstrate that she is fit for purpose. That may be too short a period to have any meaningful impact.

But she must do all she can to drive that process of change.
Dr Morai must start by weeding out rogue officers and revamp police training curriculum so that it is un line with modern policing trends.

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