Africa-Press – Lesotho. That is the amount that party agents, civic education organisations and companies that provided services during last year’s general elections say they are owed by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).
The party agents, who met this week to press for payment have now petitioned the IEC to pay up or they would sue. Some civic associations provided voter education from as far back as February last year while others began three months before the elections in October.
The associations say they hired other service providers to help with logistics in executing the IEC tasks. Some companies and individuals were hired directly by the IEC to provide different services before, during and after the elections.
Sofonia Shale, the director of Development for Peace Education (DPE), said his association was also given a voter education assignment and for that to happen they needed support from businesses and other service providers.
“After the agreement with the IEC, each organisation was assigned an area and a section of society it would work in,” Shale said.
“This work came with costs that it had to bear, including the youths and adults who trained party agents, wrote, published and broadcasted news,” he said.
“They were even (funding) their own expenses.
Several organisations that attended the petition indaba in Maseru said only 30 percent of the money they had charged the IEC was paid while others said 40 percent was paid. They indicated that the IEC owed them about M63 million in total.
Fusi Majoro, a representative of Campaign for Education Forum (CEF), said it was agreed that his organisation would be paid 40 percent of the amount they had charged at the beginning of the contract and the remaining 60 percent would follow upon completion.
Majoro said the agreement changed over time and the IEC gave them 30 percent and after that it said they had to claim for the expenses they incurred and would be paid accordingly.
“As soon as we started working, money was needed especially for those who were hired temporarily because their work required them to go to the villages and live there,” Majoro said.
“They needed transport, accommodation, food and airtime,” he said. He said the 30 percent that they received from the IEC covered only a small portion of their expenses. Majoro said to their disappointment after completing their tasks the IEC told them that it was unable to pay them because the government was broke.
“This has hit us hard because we still have debts to settle for the cars we hired and also people who were providing catering services at some events that we held,” he said.
Motlalepula Topisi said he supplied the DPE, which was under the IEC contract, with branding material worth over M12 500. Topisi said this has hit him hard because he used both his personal and the company funds with the hope that the DPE would pay him quickly.
Topisi said he is now not able to meet his other clients’ expectations, some of whom he had worked with for years. “I have not been able to deliver on the time we agreed on and .
. I had to cancel some of my important customers’ orders,” Topisi said.
The IEC spokesman, Tuoe Hantši, said the commission’s budget for the 2022 parliamentary election was M320 million but the government gave them only M265.5 million.
He however said the IEC owes suppliers about M55 million not over M63 million. “We have not been given this money up to today and we are still waiting,” Hantši said.
“It is said that it will come from this financial year’s budget and that is when (we) will be able to pay those who are owed by the IEC,” he said.
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