Africa-Press – Lesotho. Some of the offices of the Teaching Service Department (TSD) are reported to have caught fire during early hours of Monday this week. This is according to the Ministry of Education and Training’s (MoET) Principal Secretary (PS) for Higher Education Dr. Thabiso Lebese. It was between 6am and 8am when the day shift guard was relieving the night shift guard, when they spotted fumes coming from one of the offices. The fire erupted in the Human Resource (HR) Office and on to nearby offices. He said the HR office damage is extensive while the other nearby offices are partly damaged.
“As each block building is equipped with fire extinguishers we were able to put out those fires,” notes Lebese. The fire destroyed teachers’ files and other office equipment. He went on to mention that it is early to estimate the damage caused.
The PS said the Police investigations are ongoing on this matter. Asked if he does not suspect an act of sabotage by some of the officials as TSD had come under fire for what was said by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that it is paying ‘ghost’ teachers,
without entertaining the suspicion, he said their preliminary inquiries show that there is a possibility that the fire was caused by unattended oil heater which was left turned on. He went on to say, the workers of that particular workstation where the fire is suspected to have come from will be engaged in the ongoing investigations. There are no injuries reported in this case as there were no people inside the building when the fire broke out. The TSD is the government institute falling under the MoET which is charged with the mandate to oversee teaching services.
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