LESOTHO this week pleaded with South Africa not to facilitate the seizure of royalties by a German solar company, Frazer Solar, which is claiming M856 million from the tiny kingdom.
Lesotho’s Foreign Affairs Minister ’Matšepo Ramakoae told thepost that a high-powered delegation was in Pretoria on Monday where it was agreed with South Africa to handle the issue with care.
Ramakoae said she agreed with South Africa’s International Relations Minister, Naledi Pandor, that there should not be any conflicts between the two countries.
“Anyone who intrudes between us will be defeated as we will collaborate with South Africa,” Ramakoae said.
Ramakoae’s delegation to Pretoria included Water Affairs Minister Nkaku Kabi and the principal secretary for the Water Ministry.
The reason they went to Pretoria was to plead with South Africa to uphold the 1986 Lesotho Highlands Water Project Treaty over any other thing.
This came after a Johannesburg High Court ruled in favour of Frazer Solar against Lesotho for reneging on a controversial contract to supply solar heaters and geysers to government houses.
Frazer Solar’s lawyers have already attached royalties that were due to be paid to Lesotho for water channeled to its Gauteng province from the Lesotho Highlands Water Project.
Ramakoae said the meeting agreed that civil servants from the two countries should continue to work according to the 1986 Treaty.
“We visited South Africa to negotiate government-to-government,” Ramakoae said.
“Lesotho and the South African government have a treaty government-to-government therefore we were sent to South Africa to find out what is happening,” she said.
“As our agreement is between us, no other people from outside will threaten the treaty,” she said.
She said they wanted to “find out who this Frazer is”.
“We also wanted to find out what happened and we wanted to discuss what the Treaty says,” she said.
“The issue of royalties is for the two countries not only one country without the other. Some of the cases are in courts therefore we did not want to interfere.”
She added that “the South African side seems to understand Lesotho’s point, especially because the royalties are not yet seized, they just attached them”.
Attachment is a preliminary legal procedure to seize property in anticipation of a favorable ruling for a plaintiff who claims to be owed money, according to the Investopedia.
Frazer Solar and Lesotho signed a binding agreement that was sealed in 2018 for the provision of about 40 000 solar water heating systems, 20MW of solar photovoltaic capacity, one million LED lights and 350 000 solar lanterns.
Frazer Solar’s lawyers said in a statement that Lesotho refused to finalise and execute the project’s financial agreements without providing any reasons.
Frazer Solar later learnt that a competing project had been given priority.
The lawyers’ statement showed that the former Prime Minister Thomas Thabane’s office had signed the agreement and they failed to understand why the then Finance Minister Moeketsi Majoro was arguing that the project required cabinet approval.
The Prime Minister, the highest authority in the executive, had approved the project, the lawyers argued.
Even when Majoro had become the Prime Minister in 2019 Frazer Solar lawyers said informed him that they were now going for arbitration but no response came from his office.
Prime Minister Majoro’s spokesman Buta Moseme told thepost recently that “the Prime Minister does not know anything about the signed contract”.
“We have launched investigations, I will not tell whether the police or the DCEO has been roped in, but all I can say is that the government is investigating,” Moseme said.