’Marafaele Mohloboli
POLICE Commissioner (Compol) Holomo Molibeli has fulfilled his promise to meet his perennial foes, the Lesotho Police Staff Association (LEPOSA), in an effort to bury the hatchet and work together in harmony.
Commissioner Molibeli and the LEPOSA leadership met last Thursday after he had invited the police union for reconciliation talks during its elective conference last month. Compol Molibeli spoke at that conference.
In a reconciliatory speech that took some union members aback, Commissioner Molibeli had said the only reason he had attended the conference was to extend an olive branch to the association.
He also told the conference that the days of fighting and animosity between him and the union were over and it was now time to work together to map the future of the police.
LEPOSA general secretary, ’Makatleho Mphetho, told the Sunday Express that their meeting with Commissioner Molibeli had been cordial.
Inspector Mphetho said the engagement was an encouraging start although the police boss had been noncommittal to their grievances.
There was no way the public could get good services as long as the relations between the police management and LEPOSA remained strained, she said.
“Compol Molibeli was very accommodating and gave us a warm reception and this gave us hope that we can work together in harmony in due course and bury the hatchet,” Inspector Mphetho said.
“We want to think that there is need for us to be patient to give Compol Molibeli time to address our grievances.”
She said they reiterated their demand for the reinstatement of the union’s spokesperson, Police Constable (PC) Motlatsi Mofokeng, who has been in exile in South Africa since March 2021 after he was fired by Commissioner Molibeli for allegedly always criticising him.
“We told Compol Molibeli that we want PC Mofokeng back in the country and at work because he has been persecuted for issues relating to LEPOSA and not his own personal stuff,” Inspector Mphetho said.
Commissioner Molibeli was not available for comment on the outcome of the meeting as his phone kept ringing without being answered.
Commissioner Molibeli and LEPOSA have been at loggerheads over what the union views as his bias and ineptitude in handling its members’ grievances.
LEPOSA alleges that since taking charge in August 2017, Commissioner Molibeli has unprocedurally promoted his close allies and fired those who oppose him, especially members of the union.
He has done this using the Police Service Act, which empowers the police commissioner to dismiss police officers without affording them a hearing, they claim.
LEPOSA also accuses Commissioner Molibeli of failing to curb police brutality which has seen the Lesotho Mounted Police Service (LMPS) facing numerous lawsuits running into millions of maloti under his watch.
The union further blasts him for not engaging it on issues of mutual interest.
It is against this acrimonious background between the union and Commissioner Molibeli that he made overtures to meet to discuss the future of the police.
Inspector Mphetho said they also called for a stop to the harassment of LEPOSA executive committee officials for ‘flimsy’ reasons.
“We can’t pretend to have forgotten that some of us have been tortured day and night. Our president, Teboho Modia, was arrested sometime back for issues pertaining to this movement and not his personal matters.
“I have also had my fair share of persecution and harassment and to date I still have not gone back to my working station because each time I go there, there are people sent to harass me. I don’t know what to do anymore,” Inspector Mphetho said.
Inspector Mphetho hogged the headlines in April 2020 when she took a senior police officer, DCP Paseka Mokete, to court for sexual assault.
Inspector Mphetho had accused DCP Mokete of touching her buttocks without her consent, breaking her trousers’ buttons and manhandling her while she was on duty at parliament. This allegedly happened when DCP Mokete had gone to serve her with his letter renouncing his membership of LEPOSA in her then capacity as deputy secretary general.
Senior Resident Magistrate Peter Murenzi dismissed Inspector Mphetho’s case for lack of evidence.
Inspector Mphetho then appealed the ruling.
The appeal is yet to be heard in the High Court.
Mofokeng told the Sunday Express in a recent interview that he missed home but would only consider coming back from South Africa where is he holed when relations between LEPOSA and Commissioner Molibeli improve.
He said he fears for his life.
“I’m still not comfortable to come back home for fear of persecution by police management. I will onIy return when things improve between the union and the police management,” Mofokeng said.
