Bongiwe Zihlangu
THE government and the opposition in parliament have agreed to break their deadlock over the much-delayed reforms process.
They were due to have signed an agreement yesterday to break their impasse and enable passage of the 11th Amendment to the Constitution – also known as the Omnibus Constitutional Bill. Parliament will then be recalled from its winter recess to pass the Omnibus Bill and enable the process of the reforms to move forward ahead of a crunch August 2023 summit of Southern African Community Development (SADC) leaders.
The regional body has expressed its displeasure at the snail’s pace of the reforms and expects to hear that tangible progress has been made to finalise them at the August summit.
The signing of the government, opposition agreement did not happen yesterday but the Lesotho Times understands it will now happen anytime from now after which Parliament will be recalled.
The government and the opposition had haggled over the Omnibus Bill with Prime Minister Sam Matekane’s government insisting on revisiting it and breaking it into the three categories that require different majorities for passage; ie, the simple majority, two thirds majority and a national referendum.
The opposition had demanded that it be passed in full as is and as of the stage it was when the life of the last 10th Parliament ended last year. The quibbling over how to proceed with the Omnibus Bill had once again threatened to further stall the reforms process. The opposition had also accused the government of wanting to cherry pick the reforms that it wants to push through first to entrench its power and leave behind clauses meant to hold it accountable.
After the opposition and the government sign their agreement, Deputy Prime Minister and Law and Justice Minister Nthomeng Majara will brief members of the Senate. Parliament will then be recalled from the winter recess.
According to Ms Majara, it is imperative that the Omnibus Bill be passed at the end of June or at latest early July.
Speaking on the margins of the government’s meeting with the opposition on Tuesday this week, DPM Majara had claimed the two warring sides had in their previous closed meetings, explored sections 78 and 85 of the constitution of Lesotho, to establish if they would allow passage of the Omnibus Bill as is, as per the opposition’s demands. After consultations with legal experts, they concluded that it would not work.
As such, Justice Majara said they had met with the opposition again to explore section 81 of the constitution to allow them to make amendments that would allow for the Omnibus Bill to pass as is.
Former law minister Lekhetho Rakuoane, who led the reforms process during former Prime Minister Moeketsi Majoro’s tenure from May 2020 to October 2022, said last night the government and the opposition had eventually found common ground.
They were now on the verge of signing an agreement to pass the Omnibus Bill as is, he said. The government’s intention to split it in line with the majorities stated above would then be done after the Bill is passed.
According to Adv Rakuoane, both the government and the opposition had met each other halfway or at least “compromised equally”.
Advocate Rakuoane insisted the opposition’s major gripe had been with the government’s proposal to dismember the Omnibus Bill before it was resuscitated and passed. That would have effectively meant that the government was starting the reforms process from the beginning.
The opposition did not mind if the Omnibus Bill was revisited after it had been resuscitated at the stage it was when the 10th Parliament ceased.
“As the deputy prime minister intimated, we are on the verge of signing an agreement that will be made public. Yes, we are going to revive the Omnibus Bill at the stage it was when the 10th Parliament ceased. We are almost there. The problem that we had with government, was they wanted to start the process from scratch. But we were saying, revive and pass it as is, then you can make all the amendments you want afterwards. You can split the Bill, if need be,” Adv Rakuoane said.
“After the Bill has been resuscitated, passed, and split into three parts, it will still be subject to amendments. You will recall that there were people who were not happy with certain things. Like I’ve said already, we only had a problem with starting the whole Bill from scratch because that’s what the government wanted.
Official Leader of Opposition in Parliament, Mathibeli Mokhothu, could not be reached for comment last night.
Meanwhile, in an earlier interview, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, Limpho Tau, had said the government would no longer be willing to be held to ransom by the opposition.
He said it was inevitable that the Omnibus Bill would have to be split into the sections as per the majorities required to pass them. The government would not drop that stipulation.
While the government wished to have the opposition’s buy-in, its decision to disentangle the constitutional draft and group it into three separate Bills comprising clauses requiring simple majority, two-thirds majority and those that require a referendum to pass, would stand.
Most of the aspects of the Omnibus Bill required a simple majority and the government would be able to pass those clauses anyway using its majority in Parliament.
Those who continued being a stumbling block to the reforms by thwarting clauses that required two thirds majority and a referendum would finally have to face the censure of SADC, Mr Tau warned.
In 2019, SADC had declared that to ensure that Lesotho’s reforms process was expedited, it would impose sanctions on leaders/or stakeholders who hindered progress of the reforms process.
“This government’s position is that we believe that to make progress, we should break the Omnibus Bill into three different amendments and deal with them separately,” Mr Tau said.
“It does not make sense to deal with the Bill as one. The opposition have been demanding that for their political agendas only.”
Whichever way one looked at it, the Omnibus Bill would eventually have to be dismantled and dealt with as per the clauses of the majorities required to pass it, he said.
He dismissed the opposition’s suggestion that the government insistence on breaking the Bill was to entrench its own position.
“That school of thought is absolutely misplaced…,” Mr Tau said.
“We have done some consultations with many stakeholders, and almost all of them except the opposition understand that the Bill must be separated into three different Bills. The opposition are a key stakeholder because we are going to be together in parliament,” Mr Tau said.
“We will continue seeking them out. But if it comes to a push, we will go ahead and deal with those reforms that need simple majorities to approve….”
Mr Tau said it was also inevitable to revisit the Omnibus Bill because the current version was not fully representative of the views of the people. It had been “castrated” so much that it no longer represented the will of the people.
“We are also not going to ignore His Majesty King Letsie III’s call to us all, to refer back to Plenary II (guiding document containing Basotho’s wishes regarding sectors to be reformed). We will revisit that document, but I can tell that the opposition are not interested in going back there.”
In the end, the constitutional reforms must be dealt with properly and those that impeded progress would be referred to SADC for sanction, he said.
“Remember that in 2019 Sadc declared that any person who became a hindrance to the progress of reforms, the regional body would deal with. Sadc said it would impose sanctions on such individuals. …”
“It seems people have forgotten about that warning. Whoever doesn’t want to make sure that the two-thirds majority and referendum clauses pass, we will have to refer them to Sadc…,” he said.
