Africa-Press – Lesotho. THE Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Nthoateng Lebona, this week pleaded for closer support from the African Development Bank (AFDB) to build a resilient economy.
Lebona told a team of AFDB senior advisers that Lesotho had experienced significant negative shocks as a result of a decline in Southern African Customs Union (SACU) revenues, natural disasters and the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The question then becomes how do we survive after this? How do we stimulate the economy and build resilience,” Lebona said. Lebona said they were looking at how best the AFDB could advise them in order to emerge stronger from these challenges.
Lesotho, Lebona said, is already battling with high unemployment and poverty rates and need new techniques to stimulate the economy to create jobs. “We need to take a new policy direction that will help us to respond better to disasters,” he said.
“We need to increase allocations and get access to other funds that will assist with setting up various infrastructure to pave way for a private sector led economy.
” Denis Dubuisson, the AFDB Mission leader, said the visit was supposed to have taken place in 2020 but was postponed due to the Covid-pandemic. The AFDB, he said, every year visits a total of eight countries to better understand their challenges and find out how best the bank can assist.
“Engaging closely with those fully involved in the projects funded by AFDB provides a clear picture in terms of policy direction and strategies needed to be taken to solve certain challenges,” Dubuisson said.
The mission also wanted to hear if Lesotho is still satisfied with not having a physical representation of the bank in the country and having to depend on the presence they have in Pretoria.
Lebona mentioned that the country has applied for presence in the country as they believe that with closer presence will translate into frequent dialogue and advice in real time.
The mission will also have dialogue with the private sector to better understand the challenges they face and how the bank’s programmes can benefit them.
The AFDB supports a number of activities in the country including the Economic Diversification Support Project, the Lesotho Tax Modernisation Project and the Lowlands Rural Water Supply and Sanitation project.
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