Africa-Press – Lesotho. FORMER Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, Temeki Tšolo, says he was the victim of an elaborate scheme when he endorsed a controversial solar power deal that has now seen Lesotho’s assets seized.
Testifying before parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday, Tšolo appeared keen to wash his hands off the matter by shifting blame to ’Masentle Ntobaki, a ministerial secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office.
He said both Ntobaki and Robert Frazer had connived against him to defraud the country. He said he regrets not shutting the door on Frazer and everyone associated with him.
“They connived with my secretary and aide to tarnish my name,” Tšolo said.
“Ke raisitsoe tjoto,” he said, meaning he was fooled. He said he has been “stung by lice of my own blanket”, a Sesotho idiom meaning he had been betrayed by those close to him.
In a bizarre twist to the case, Tšolo sought to absolve himself of blame by directly implicating Ntobaki. He insisted that he never signed the deal, accusing Ntobaki of signing the contract on his behalf.
“How could she sign on my behalf,” he said.
Tšolo said he met Frazer in his office when he was proposing to install solar-powered geysers and lights for M1.7 billion but “I did not know that the funds were part of a credit facility from the Germany government”.
He said he told Frazer that the money was huge and needed to be worked out by the Ministry of Finance not him. Asked why he officiated at a meeting in which Frazer was presenting his project, Tšolo said he knew nothing and he only went there because his secretary had told him to.
He said it was Ntobaki who told him that there was a meeting at Durham Link where the government technocrats were meeting Frazer and he had to go there to open the meeting.
After opening, he told the PAC that he left and never knew what was discussed thereafter. He only said what surprised him about the meeting was that there were no principal secretaries from any government ministry.
He said he did not even know who funded the Durham Link meeting. He said he was surprised to hear that he signed a contract with Frazer. “I heard it for the first time yesterday that the personal aide and secretary signed,” he said.
“I never sat down with Frazer to sign,” he said. He said the signature does not look like his because his full names are Temeki Phoenix Tšolo, not Tšolo Temeki Phoenix.
He said he remembered being called by Ntobaki recently saying he should stop denying that he signed because he did. He accused Ntobaki of dishonestly signing the contract on his behalf to appear as if he signed.
“My life is now miserable as everywhere people look at me as if I did (something) wrong.
” Nyapane Kaya, the MP for Mechechane, asked Tšolo if he was in a stable state of mind when he signed the papers.
Tšolo took offence at the insinuation and said: “Does he think I was drunk, it is your discretion to say so. ” On Tuesday, Thabane’s former personal aide, Hlophe Matla, was also grilled by the PAC.
Matla said King Letsie III was made to meet with Frazer with the help of Thabane himself. “He told me that His Majesty the King was pleased with the presentation of his business proposal,” Matla told the PAC.
Thabane is yet to be called for questioning on the role he played in the deal that is now threatening to rip Lesotho of its assets abroad after Frazer successfully sued the country for breach of contract.
Matla, who said he was also tricked into signing as a witness, said the key facilitator in the scandalous deal was Ntobaki. He said he was made to believe that he was signing a letter, unaware that it was actually a contract.
He said he signed because he saw the signature of Tšolo appended on the document written on behalf of the Government of Lesotho. He also said he did not question the document as it was already signed by Tšolo who was his superior.
Matla said the letter was on a letterhead from the Prime Minister’s Office and he was made to understand that it was merely transferring the project from that office to the Ministries of Finance and Development Planning.
“On the second page I saw that it was signed by Tšolo,” he said.
He also said Ntobaki said Tšolo had already signed and asked him to sign as a witness. “I had no problem signing as a witness and I did. ” He said he was unaware that he was signing the contract.
Matla said he was the one who facilitated the meeting between Frazer and Thabane at the request of Tšolo. First, it was at the request of Ntobaki that Frazer should meet Thabane and he was asked to set up a meeting between the two, Matla said.
Matla said he was surprised one day when he heard it from a radio station that there was a dispute over the solar project and that Moeketsi Majoro, who was then the Finance Minister, was rejecting it.
“It was my first time to realise that the project did not happen,” he said. Two weeks ago, he said, the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Offences (DCEO) interviewed him about the signatures. He said he was shown a bulky document bearing his signature and he was shocked because the letter he signed had three pages only.
He said after the DCEO interrogated him he called Tšolo and asked him if he knew about the contract and his answer was that he did not know it and also that he did not remember instructing him to sign for anything.
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