Africa-Press – Lesotho. THE Basotho Action Party (BAP) says it is mulling dragging the government to court over its plan to recruit party cadres to work in a poverty reduction programme.
Professor Nqosa Mahao, who is the BAP leader, told a press conference in Maseru on Tuesday that the government was parcelling out jobs to people connected to parties in the coalition government.
Prime Minister Sam Matekane’s Revolution for Prosperity (RFP) is in a coalition deal with the Alliance of Democrats (AD) and the Movement for Economic Change (MEC).
There are other smaller parties like the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD), Lesotho People’s Congress (LPC), United for Change (UFC) and Hope which also support the government.
Prof Mahao said these parties were also enjoying the spoils of victory. “We have instructed our lawyers to do anything legally possible to stop this,” Professor Mahao said.
The poverty reduction programme is an initiative that began in the 1970s as a bottom-up national strategy to fight poverty. The programme was however hijacked with the Basotho National Party (BNP) government recruiting its own people for the project in rural areas.
During the military junta, the faction of the BNP that had aligned itself with the army and other close parties benefited in the same way. Under the Basutoland Congress Party (BCP) government in the 1990s the BNP as the opposition party complained bitterly about the same thing.
Under the LCD tenure, the All Basotho Convention (ABC) and Democratic Congress (DC) governments, the opposition also complained about the politicisation of the poverty reduction programme.
Professor Mahao said the government has been hiring family members in high positions but “we thought the small projects like these would be given to ordinary citizens and not party cadres’’.
“They are now doing the things they condemned during the past regime,” he said.
“The RFP promised to end nepotism among the other bad things that were happening.
He said he has also discovered that the RFP members will get all supervisory positions in all the constituencies except the constituencies where its allies won in the last election.
This means supervisory positions for these jobs in Thabana-Morena will go to the MEC because its leader, Selibe Mochoboroane, is the one who won the constituency.
Also the Mosalemane constituency supervisory positions for the poverty reduction jobs will be reserved for the AD members because its leader, Professor Ntoi Rapapa, won it.
The AD will also get such positions in the Maliba-Matšo constituency, which was won by the AD MP Mokoto Hloaele. “This matter is against section 18 of the constitution that says no one should be discriminated because of their political affiliation,” Professor Mahao said.
He said it is sad that this is happening at a time when the country is preparing for local the government election. He said this was a clear vote-buying gimmick.
He said the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) must quickly take action to stop the practice. He said the BAP has since instructed its lawyers to draw the IEC’s attention to the scandal.
Liteboho Kompi, who is the spokesperson for the MEC, rejected the charge insisting that “the recruitment procedure is done transparently at a public gathering at the village chief’s court”.
The AD spokesperson Litaba Taaibosch said they are not aware of Professor Mahao’s allegations. He said if that is true, it is not what they had expected as a party.
“We need transparency as a party,” Taaibosch said.
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