Africa-Press – Lesotho. Transport operators who rented their vehicles to the government have threatened to withdraw their vehicles over non-payment. Some of the operators told parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Monday that they were last paid 10 months ago.
They said some banks that had given them loans to buy the vehicles were now blacklisting them for failure to service their loans. There are about 400 fleet suppliers who have rented out their vehicles to the government.
The operators told the PAC that they were fully aware that any decision to withdraw the vehicles would deliver a serious blow to the government’s operations.
“This deal has bankrupted us and left us blacklisted by the banks,”’Makhotso Molefe, who spoke on behalf of the transport operators, told the PAC. Molefe said most of them got loans from Lesotho Post Bank and some of them have not been able to service their loans for the past 10 months.
Molefe said they want to get their arrears and credits paid so that they can terminate the four-year deal with the government “and go try business elsewhere”.
“We have been blacklisted by all the banks because of the deal with the government,” Molefe said.
“We have interests on arrears, we are damaged,” she said. She pleaded with those responsible to start first by paying the overdue invoices.
“All the credits and arrears must be paid so that we go and start our businesses afresh elsewhere. This was a fraud,” she said.
She complained that the drivers, hired by the government, never notify them when the vehicles’ brake pads are worn off. “They drive the car until it is damaged beyond repair,” she said.
Another owner, Lebohang Motaung, told the committee that the delay to process their payments has caused them financial ruin as arrears never stop. “Some of us were never paid for 10 months and others for five months,” Motaung said.
Motaung said they have to incur the service and repair costs at a time when they are not being paid. Another businessman, Makama Monese, told the committee that the Finance Ministry’s principal secretary, Nthoateng Lebona, “is very cruel”.
“She used to pass us in the passage in her office, we were never helped,” Monese said.
“My vehicle is never paid on time, but our contract says the vehicles would be paid before the 15th of every month,” he said.
He said his car was last paid in April 2023. “Now it is September without pay. ” He complained that he recently paid M6 000 to service his vehicle yet the government never pays them.
The Lesotho Post Bank manager of Business Banking, Tumelo Mahooe, said the agreement was for the vehicles to be paid monthly so that the bank could take its charges.
“The delay to pay calls for arrears and they are later charged penalties,” Mahooe said. He also said their loan books are full of vehicle credits because many of them are still owed.
The Ministry of Finance principal secretary Nthoateng Lebona told the committee that most of the unpaid vehicles “lack the necessary procurement tools and documents to allow for their payments”.
She said some did not have valid contracts. Lebona said they need proper documentation before processing payments. She said they have about 400 vehicles under the deal.
She also said they owe a lot of money to ministries despite the government’s directive to pay urgently “because the chief accounting officers do not comply with proper procurement procedures”.
Lebona said it is because of failure by chief accounting officers in government ministries to furnish her with relevant documents that the funds requested by those ministries to pay vehicle owners have not been paid.
She said her ministry owes the Justice Ministry M583 000, Home Affairs M216 000, Prime Minister’s Office M1.9 million, Communications M18 000, Forestry M216 000, Energy M425 000, Local Government M58 000, and Social Development M270 000.
She also said they are awaiting credits from the Disaster Management Authority (DMA) and the Cabinet Office as they need to be consolidated. “We are working hard with Treasury to ensure that the vehicle credits are centralised so that payments are done without queries,” she said.
She also said her ministry has asked chief accounting officers to ensure that all the documents are available before payments to avoid problems. “The Treasury has found out that most of the vehicle submissions documents are inadequate.
” Lebona said invoices are needed before payments so that the expired contracts are detected.
“We have instructed the chief accounting officers to comply and provide the necessary documentation several times, but they never comply.
” Lebona added that they have also asked the African Development Bank to send an expert to come and advise on how the matter could be solved.
She said the supplementary budget of about M500 million was recently done to pay suppliers, including those who rented out their vehicles to the government.
“The transactions cannot be done where there is lack of documentation or where the procurement procedures were not followed,” she said.
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