Africa-Press – Lesotho. The acting Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Hon. Likopo Mahase announced on Monday the payments of wool and mohair farmers and the progress in the processing of such
payments. Out of 2,710 farmers who were owed a total of M10 530 766.10, 114 farmers have been paid a total amount of M557 755.15 on May 4th. 749 farmers have been confirmed to have active
bank accounts whereas 1,951 farmers have either no bank account, dormant inactive and incorrect accounts. Speaking at the press conference, Mahase indicated that Standard Lesotho Bank (SLB) is processing
payments of 633 farmers whose payments amount to M3 078639.93. He said the First National Bank (FNB) is processing payments of two farmers amounting to M7 631.00.
The remaining 1 951 farmers without bank accounts shall be paid a total of M6 886 740.04 over the counter at Lesotho Post Bank (LPB) and LPB has confirmed that payments will be made as soon as the
lists have been verified. He noted that his ministry has requested an additional M2 106 153.22 as a contingency for incidental cases of farmers that may have been excluded during the stock sheets compilation at
shearing sheds and all the above shall be verified after all payments have been successfully made and queries have been submitted to the ministry. Mahase explained that the
ministry submitted payment vouchers for the above referenced to the Ministry of Finance on April 22nd 2021 requesting it to pay 759 farmers through the banks.
He extended that the payment vouchers from Treasury were submitted to the Central Bank of Lesotho (CBL) and there was confirmation of the receipt of funds into the accounts where these payments were made to.
He noted that payment disbursements to the individual farmers’ accounts to the two commercial banks (SLB and FNB) will be facilitated by the Ministry of Finance and payments to
LPB will be facilitated by LPB itself. Mahase briefly highlighted the background of wool and mohair business in Lesotho saying, “In the season of 2018/2019 all of Lesotho wool and mohair were being marketed in Lesotho by
Lesotho Wool and Mohair Centre (LWC). The 2018/2019 season marketing of Lesotho wool and mohair faced a number of challenges internally. One of the challenges faced
by LWC was the inability to process wool and mohair farmer’s payments, which led to a significant number of farmers not being paid”. Mahase pointed that in
June 2019 the National Assembly adopted the recommendations which were made by the Ad hoc committee on the wool and mohair, in particular the recommendation
that the government of Lesotho should pay all farmers whose payments were outstanding. “In an effort to implement the above recommendation, cabinet directed the Ministry of Small Business Development, Cooperatives and Marketing
and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to collect and verify lists of unpaid wool and mohair farmers. Upon completion of this exercise the Ministry
of Small Business Development, Cooperatives and Marketing requested additional budget of M10, 530, 766. 10 from cabinet to enable it to address the outstanding payment of farmers and it was approved by the cabinet in April 2021,” Mahase explained.
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