News

The big stink of Maseru

Published

2 years ago

January 31, 2023

MASERU – FROM litigation to meetings with council officials and MPs, the stink refuses to go for residents of Ha-Tšosane. Thousands of people who are living in the area have for years paid the price of haphazard planning of human settlements by the Maseru City Council. A dumpsite that has become a health hazard showcases the troubles of the residents.

Residents’ representatives have for the past decade been to the Ministry of Local Government, the Maseru City Council (MCC) and the parliamentary Public Accounts

Committee (PAC) seeking intervention without success. Last year they took the MCC to court. The case is yet to be heard.

The residents approached the court after the MCC threatened them with eviction, claiming that they built their houses around the dumpsite without the municipality’s authorisation.

Residents at Ha-Tšosane say instead of moving them, the council should close the “filthy landfill”.

Some have been angered by comments made by the council spokesperson, ’Makatleho Mosala, who previously told thepost that the residents were illegal occupants who should be removed without compensation.

The infamous dumpsite is very close to residential houses and poses a health risk.

“The houses were built after the city made that area a dumpsite,” Mosala said. “That dumpsite existed a very long time ago. Actually that was a quarry pit and then later was turned into a dumpsite,” she said. “Even if you go there you will find that some of the houses are still new and others are just very close to it.”

Mosala had said “most of those people, some of them were not given the green light by the Maseru City Council to build in that area because there was already a dumpsite there. Those illegal site occupants will be removed without any compensation.”

She said the council had already told the residents to leave, although negotiations are still ongoing.

But the residents are having none of it. Together with their chief, they have dared the council to execute its threat and “see what happens”.

Chief Michael Ramosalla told thepost this week that he was shocked to learn that some of the residents will be removed from the village. He claimed that people settled in the area long before the council established the dumpsite.

He said the quarry referred to by Mosala was first situated about five kilometres from the current location and this was before Maseru’s population boomed.

“There were already people living here. So it’s obvious that the quarry came to the people, people didn’t go to the quarry. The quarry came to the village,” fumed Chief Ramosalla.

He said the villagers were told that it was a temporary arrangement when the quarry was turned into a dumpsite. The dumpsite was established in 1983, decades after people began settling there, he said.

“This village has always existed,” Chief Ramosalla said.

Many residents said they will resist any attempts to evict them. Some attribute the problem to failure by authorities to plan the town.

In an effort to resolve the planning mess, the National University of Lesotho (NUL) is now offering a new course in the faculty of Geography and Environmental Sciences called Legal Aspects of Planning.

The course, introduced by former MCC Town Clerk, Advocate ’Mantai Seeko, aims to equip students with the main principles of planning.

“When you come to Lesotho, it is almost as if there are no planners,” Advocate Seeko said.

She was speaking at an indaba on urban planning held by the Lesotho Town and Regional Planning Institute (LTRPI) in Maseru last week.

“The majority of the planning that takes place in the country is done by the Maseru City Council. Unfortunately, there are planners practising this profession who have not obtained the correct educational qualifications,” she said, adding that “it is important to professionalise this institute so that it can be the voice to tell the MCC and other ministries that they are not qualified planners”.

Lesotho is faced with a major land-use crisis due to lack of plan-led developments, in particular towns and urban areas.

The town is characterised by informal developments, with many people living in unplanned and informal settlements.

Planning is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land at different spatial scale, city scale down to districts and neighbourhoods with focus on where development should occur and where it should not.

Many participants at the planning indaba last week said the planning law in Lesotho has become useless and this is evidenced by the rapid growth of informal settlements on agricultural land as well as traffic congestion at major intersections in the capital city

“Planning is not recognised both legally in terms of legislation and as a profession,” one participant said.

Some voiced their desire and willingness to professionalise planning and help raise the standard of planning practice in Lesotho.

“Professionalising planning would be a positive step forward and aid in Lesotho’s proper spatial development and all matters of the built environment,” Teboho Lebusa, president of the Lesotho Town and Regional Planning Institute, said.

The institute is aiming to push for the reform of the planning law in Lesotho, particularly the Town and Country Planning Act (TCPA) of 1980.

The envisioned reform would include making it mandatory for all practising planners to be legally registered with the institute so that only qualified and competent professionals practice town planning.

“We can agree that indeed the current state of affairs, evidenced by the crippled, haphazard and chaotic nature in the development and use of land in our country leaves much to be desired,” Lebusa said.

The institute aspires to ensure efficient and productive use of land in Lesotho, and to grow and professionalise the institute as a leading entity in matters of planning in the country.

It plans to do so by establishing and maintaining fruitful relationships with all stakeholders in planning issues, including government agencies, parastatals, NGOs, individuals and other professional organisations both domestically and internationally.

Last year, then Trade Minister Dr Thabiso Molapo, talked about the Lesotho Urban Agenda which he said aims to elevate the standing of urbanisation within the Lesotho

Strategic Development Plan and foster a sustainable and competitive urban development system that will contribute to Lesotho’s economic, social and environmentally sustainable development.

Dr Molapo was presenting the Lesotho’s urban agenda at the 18th Private Consultative Meeting between stakeholders. Dr Molapo said the 21st century will be the century of cities, saying by 2050, at least 70 percent of the world population will live in cities even though Lesotho will not meet that rate.

Dr Resetselemang Leduka, a renowned National University of Lesotho (NUL) academic who wrote several papers on urbanisation issues, observed shocking factors on why Lesotho towns are not properly planned.

In a paper titled Land Governance in Lesotho, published in 2019, Leduka and other researchers noted that despite the Land Act of 2010 and the institutional framework of land administration that it created, “the governance and management of land remains chaotic at best ‘’.

They found that numerous agencies and government ministries and departments in one way or the other are claiming some stake in land matters.

The 2000 Land Policy Review Commission noted that the management of land was the responsibility of no less than nine different government agencies, each making decisions independently.

The agencies were the Land Use Planning, which was, until recently, located in the Ministry of Agriculture, the Directorate of Lands, Surveys and Physical Planning (the lands and surveys part of the former LSPP that now partially constitutes the Land Administration Authority (LAA).

Other agencies were the Deeds Registry, which was moved from the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights), the Ministries of Public Works and Transport, Trade and

Industry, Natural Resources, Tourism, Sports and Culture, Environment, Gender and Youth Affairs, Education and Finance, Maseru Municipal Council (MMC) and the Lesotho Housing and Land Development Corporation.

The Ministry of Local Government also routinely acts alone outside of the LAA and local authorities, and urban and community councils, as well as customary chiefs, according to government findings in 2015.

At the helm of land governance in Lesotho is the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftainship, which is responsible for policy formulation and coordination of all other institutions involved in land governance.

Land agencies that fall under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Local Government are the Department of Lands Survey and Physical Planning – the Physical Planning section of this department is responsible for urban land use planning and control in Planning Areas.

The Land Use Planning section is responsible for coordinating planning in rural (community) council areas.

The Land Administration Authority (LAA) is a parastatal land agency that is responsible for national cadastre, mapping, land administration, and the registration of land titles and deeds.

The Lesotho Housing and Land Development Corporation (LHLDC), a parastatal agency, is mandated with undertaking land development (site-and services) and housing for all income groups, either for sale or rental and to assist the private sector entities to develop land and housing.

There are also Principal Chiefs who are customary authorities whose main mandate in land matters is to control and issue grazing permits for mountain rangelands in accordance with the Animal Husbandry Act 1969 (Act No. 22 of 1969).

Mountain rangelands do not fall under the jurisdiction of any local government structures.

Local councils are mandated with undertaking physical and land use planning and site allocation functions in their respective areas of jurisdiction.

Municipal and urban councils are responsible for physical planning, site allocation, and control of building permits.

The Dr Leduka-led study found that real estate companies do not have specialised legislative provisions, although they are serving high income populations in gated estates with high tech security installations and for the middle income with basic sub-divisions and surveyed plots.

The study also found that field owners and customary chiefs are “an extra-legal activity and takes over the legal responsibility of municipal/urban councils”.

It was also observed in the Trade Ministry’s 2015 report that “land-related management is uncoordinated, siloed and the site of struggle among government agencies”.

“At national level, for instance, control of land use/physical planning is entangled in struggles between agencies in the Ministry of Local Government and Land

Administration Authority,” noted the Leduka-led research.

“At local levels, similar struggles exist between local councils and customary chiefs,” stated the research paper.

The Town and Country Planning Act of 1980 is the principal legislation that regulates land use planning in urban areas.

It gives the planning authority the legal mandate to prepare development plans for areas that are designated as planning areas and establishes a Town and Country

Planning Board for the purpose of examining development plans and making recommendations to the Local Government Minister for approval.

The Act says a development plan should indicate “…the manner in which it is proposed that the area in question shall be used and developed, and the stages by which the development shall be carried out”.

In terms of the law, the development plan becomes a legally binding document to which all land development within the planning area must conform.

The Leduka-led study found that development plans did not comply fully with the requirements of the legal framework.

For example, the study found, none of the plans had undergone the 5-yearly review process that is prescribed by the law.

With the probable exception of the Maseru Development Plan, none of the plans went through the formal legal approval process in accordance with the law, according to the study.

Staff Reporter

News

BAP appeals judge’s ruling

Published

1 day ago

January 20, 2025

The Post

MASERU

THE Basotho Action Party (BAP)’s Central Executive Committee has appealed against Justice Molefi Makara’s ruling that it has no powers to suspend Motlatsi Maqelepo and Tello Kibane.

Maqelepo is the BAP deputy leader while Kibane is the chairman of the caucus in parliament.

In a ruling delivered on Tuesday, Justice Makara said the party’s disciplinary committee did not have the powers to discipline the duo when there is a pending High Court case.

The judge also said the executive committee cannot suspend the two when there is a court case seeking to interdict it from doing so.

“The matter is sub judice and it has to be so treated,” Justice Makara said on Tuesday.

The BAP’s central executive committee suspended Maqelepo for seven years and Kibane for five years beginning last Tuesday.

Maqelepo’s suspension will end on January 7, 2032 while Kibane’s will be until January 7, 2030.

Their suspension letters from the BAP deputy secretary general Victoria Qheku, say they should not participate in any of the party’s activities.

They were suspended in absentia after they refused to attend the disciplinary hearing, which they said was illegal.

Yesterday, the BAP leader, Professor Nqosa Mahao, filed an appeal against the High Court ruling.

Professor Mahao, as the first applicant along with the BAP and the disciplinary committee, argued that Justice Makara had erred and misdirected himself when he said he had jurisdiction to interfere with the internal matters of the party.

He reasoned that the High Court ignored the prayers that are purely constitutional under the 1993 Lesotho Constitution.

He said the court erred and misdirected itself “in granting the interim prayers in the face of a jurisdictional objection where no exceptional circumstances existed, especially where the applicants would have remedies in due cause”.

“The Court a quo erred and misdirected itself in granting the interim reliefs retrospectively,” the court papers read.

Maqelepo had earlier argued that there is a court case that is pending in the High Court seeking to interdict the party from charging them in its structures without approval of the special conference he is calling.

He said the party leadership should have awaited the outcome of the case before proceeding with any disciplinary action.

“The party that is led by a professor of law continues to do dismissals despite the issue being taken to the courts,” Maqelepo said.

He said their fate in the party is in the hands of the special conference.

He appealed to all the party constituencies to continue writing letters proposing the special conference.

Maqelepo, Kibane, Hilda Van Rooyen, and ’Mamoipone Senauoane are accused of supporting a move to remove Professor Mahao from his ministerial position last year.

They were part of BAP members who asked Prime Minister Sam Matekane to fire Professor Mahao, who at the same time was pushing for the reshuffle of Tankiso Phapano, the principal secretary for the Ministry of Energy.

When Matekane ignored Professor Mahao’s demands, the latter withdrew the BAP from the coalition government. That decision was fiercely opposed by the party’s four MPs.

Maqelepo started touting members from constituencies to call for the special conference to reverse Professor Mahao and the central executive committee’s decision.

The central executive committee issued a circular stopping Maqelepo’s rallies but he continued, with the support of the other MPs.

In the BAP caucus of six MPs, it is only Professor Mahao and ’Manyaneso Taole who support the withdrawal from the government.

Majara Molupe

News

Widow fights stepchildren

Published

1 day ago

January 20, 2025

The Post

LERIBE

A Butha-Buthe widow is fighting her stepchildren in court after she accused them of making illegal withdrawals of cash from her bank account.

’Maletšela Letšela told the High Court in Tšifa-li-Mali that her four stepchildren had taken advantage of her age and gained access to her money through her late husband’s death certificate which they used to withdraw some cash.

She did not reveal how much had been withdrawn from the account.

Letšela pleaded with the court to order the children to return her late husband’s death certificate.

Maletšela was the second wife to the late Mohlabakobo Letšela.

Mohlabakobo’s first wife died in 1991.

Letšela told the court in an urgent application that she married Mohlabakobo through customary rites in 1999 and they subsequently solemnised their union by civil rights in November 2003.

“I should state that I married my husband as a widower, his wife having passed away leaving behind four children who are respondents in the matter,” Letšela said.

Letšela has two children with Mohlabakobo.

She said at the time of the first wife’s death, they had already amassed property in the form of a residential house in Mokhotlong and rental flats in Butha-Buthe.

“I have always considered this property as belonging to the children of my husband’s first marriage and continue to hold that view,” Letšela said.

“During my marriage and before my husband’s death, we built a residential property at Makopo, Ha-Letšolo, in the district of Butha-Buthe,” she said.

“I had helped my husband to raise his children as my own and we have been living together as a family at my matrimonial home located at Makopo, Ha-Letšolo, until he passed away in October 2024, after a long illness.”

Letšela said after the death of her husband, they worked peacefully with his children without any sense of animosity and they appreciated her role as the widow and joint owner of her husband’s estate.

“This feeling is aided by a written deposition signed by Refiloe and Lietsietsi Letšela (Mohlabakobo’s children from the first marriage) nominating me as the heir in respect of monies held in my husband’s name at both the First National Bank and Standard Bank of Lesotho,” she said.

She said Mohlabakobo, with the aid of the family, wrote letters to appoint her heir to his estate in the event of his death.

She said even the children rightfully appointed her as the beneficiary in respect of these monies with a clear understanding that as a spouse to their late father, she was the rightful person to claim for benefits deriving out of his estate.

She said with the aid of the letter, she was able to withdraw funds from the banks to cover the funeral costs.

“Shortly after my husband’s burial, I was approached by Refiloe, who requested an original copy of my husband’s death certificate claiming she wanted to trace funds in my husband’s bank account held at Post Bank in South Africa,” she said.

“Sensing no harm, I released the copy to her and she left in the company of her brother and sister.”

She said she had no sense at that point whatsoever that Refiloe’s intentions were malicious.

“By that time Refiloe had already assumed possession of my husband’s phone and vehicle, and I did not complain owing to my old age and my understanding that

I did not know how to operate a smart phone, and my lack of skills to drive a car,” she said.

The siblings, she said, never brought any report regarding the funds they were to trace.

“I got suspicious of their actions and immediately sought intervention from the Butha-Buthe police.”

The police called Refiloe instructing her to return the death certificate, but she informed the officer that the copy was now in the custody of her sibling Litsietsi in South Africa.

Litsietsi later responded that she would “return the certificate on Wednesday, November 20, 2024 but that did not happen rather they are now claiming they never took it”.

“Sensing that the situation had gone out of hand, I decided to go to Post Bank with the aim of tracing the movement of these children,” she said.

Letšela said the bank manager told her that the children had instituted a claim as beneficiaries of the funds using the same death certificate.

The manager, she said, advised her to secure a letter of authority from the Master of the High Court for them to handle her case.

The Master of the High Court, she said, could not help her because she did not have the original copy of the certificate.

“I have no other alternative but to seek the court’s intervention as I was advised no actions could be taken without the court’s order.”

’Malimpho Majoro

News

Knives out for Molelle

Published

1 week ago

January 13, 2025

The Post

MASERU

KNORX Molelle’s appointment as the Director General of the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Offences (DCEO) in February 2023 could have been illegal.

The Law Society of Lesotho has told Prime Minister Sam Matekane that Molelle was appointed without being admitted as a legal practitioner in Lesotho, as required by law.

The society claims the information came from a whistleblower on January 2 and was corroborated by its roll of legal practitioners in Lesotho.

The society says the appointment violates section 4 of the Prevention of Corruption and Economic Offences Act 1999 which states that a person shall not be appointed as the DCEO director general unless they have been admitted as a legal practitioner in terms of the Legal Practitioners Act.

In the letter, Advocate Ithabeleng Phamotse, the society’s secretary, tells Matekane that this requirement “is not a mere procedural formality but a substantive qualification essential to the lawful appointment of the Director General”.

“The absence of such qualification fatally impairs the appointment ab initio, rendering it null and void from the outset,” Advocate Phamotse says in the letter written on Tuesday.

The society argues that if left unaddressed the illegality undermines the credibility, effectiveness and legality of the DCEO’s operations and exposes the kingdom to serious risks, including challenges to the lawfulness of decisions and actions made by Molelle.

“Should it be confirmed that the appointment was made in contravention of the mandatory legal requirements,” Advocate Phamotse said, “we respectfully urge you to take immediate corrective action to rectify this glaring irregularity”.

Advocate Phamotse tells the prime minister that if the appointment is not corrected, the society would be “left with no alternative but to institute legal proceedings to protect the interests of justice and uphold the rule of law in Lesotho”.

“We trust that you will accord this matter your highest priority and act decisively to avert further damage to the integrity of our governance structures.”

The Prime Minister’s spokesman, Thapelo Mabote, said they received the letter but Matekane had not yet read it yesterday.

Matekane is on leave and is expected back in the office on January 14.

Questions over the validity of his appointment come as Molelle is being haunted by the damaging audio clips that were leaked last week.

The clips were clandestinely recorded by Basotho National Party leader, Machesetsa Mofomobe.

In some of the clips, Molelle appears to be describing Matekane and his deputy Justice Nthomeng Majara as idiots. He also appears to be calling Law Minister Richard Ramoeletsi a devil.

In other clips, he seems to be discussing cases. thepost has not independently verified the authenticity of the audio clips.

Staff Reporter