Africa-Press – Lesotho. Muckraker was surprised to hear that last Friday had been declared a holiday. “Why?” she asked. “We are having local government elections,” they said.
That answer left Muckraker laughing for the entire weekend. In between those laughs Muckraker had the time to check what a councillor does. It turns out that their role has been so emasculated that they are now just chief mourners at funerals.
They attend village funerals to make speeches. Sometimes they attend meetings with senior government officials who generally ignore what they say. There are days when they measure some pieces of land for allocation.
When not attending funerals, being used as rubber stamps by government officials and counting metres, they are dealing with domestic disputes. Matters like who fought who at a local bar last week, who is refusing to return the wheelbarrow they borrowed from a neighbour or whose donkey strayed into whose maize field.
They are more counsellors than councillors. It’s not that councillors don’t matter but that the government has insisted on keeping all the power, authority and responsibility to itself.
Councillors have no say in how much is allocated to their areas or how resources are used. The marginalisation of the local government is deliberate. Those running the national government think they know what is best for the people.
There is however a more sinister motive for demoting local government into organisers of pitsos. It’s about resources. Not to distribute but to eat. Senior politicians and government officials know that handing over real power to the councillors means they will also have to surrender the feeding trough. The rule in this country is that you should never steal because the central government hates competition.
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