Lesotho is a land of short political lifespans. Our Prime Ministers have traditionally lasted about as long as a loaf of bread in a hungry household. Yet here we are: Sam Matekane has clocked three full years in office — a record-breaking endurance feat in a country where governments expire faster than yoghurt. For that alone, let us raise a cautious toast.
Since 2012, no Prime Minister has survived the dreaded two-year itch. Others were toppled by coalitions, coups of convenience, or their own inflated egos. Ntate Matekane, by contrast, is still standing — dented perhaps, but still standing. That, in Lesotho’s politics, is the equivalent of climbing Thabana-Ntlenyana in high heels.
Whether he will cross the finish line in 2027 remains to be seen. But as of now, he looks determined to become the first full-term finisher in over a decade. The question is whether he’ll end the race sprinting toward prosperity or merely jogging in place while waving at the cameras.
Wrestling with Pigs and Winning by Walking Away
Scrutator must, for once, start with a compliment. Matekane’s greatest achievement to date is not an economic miracle, not a reduction in poverty, nor a reform breakthrough. It is something far nobler: his steadfast refusal to roll in the mud with his sworn nemesis, Machesetsa Mofomobe (the profoundly stupid clown who leads something called the Basotho National whatever).
In politics, it takes wisdom to recognise that some fights are beneath you — especially when the opponent delights in dragging you into his pigsty of insults. Wrestling with a pig, as the saying goes, only gets you dirty while the pig enjoys it.
So, congratulations, Ntate Prime Minister, for resisting the bait. Mofomobe’s endless Facebook rants accusing you of corruption, dual citizenship, or colluding with extraterrestrial forces are better left ignored.
Machesetsa is the archetypal political pigsty one should only watch from afar. As alternatively argued last week, he is Lesotho’s political dung beetle (Again, this is said with all due respect to all dung beetles. They are generally fascinating animals, far nobler and better than the failed and moribund BNP).
Machesetsa’s obsession with who holds South African citizenships is a national comedy routine that could rival Lip Sync Battle.
Let’s be honest — who wouldn’t want to be a South African citizen? At least there you can buy eggs, drive on a proper tarred road, and find a hospital that functions. What exactly does a Lesotho passport guarantee these days — apart from a front-row seat in the unemployment queue?
So, what is wrong with all our cabinet ministers and the generality of Basotho aspiring to become South African citizens as well. Nothing.
By ignoring Mofomobe, Ntate Matekane has shown admirable restraint.
Promises, Promises
Unfortunately, that’s where the applause ends. Ntate Matekane’s endurance in office has not translated into economic stamina. His campaign promises of creating 100 000 jobs has gone the way of the dinosaurs — extinct and occasionally spotted only in PowerPoint presentations by him and his officials.
Unemployment remains sky-high, poverty lines keep stretching, and the national mood swings between despair and disbelief. The National Development Strategic Plan II (NDSP II) is less a strategy and more a polite wish list — a glossy statement of intent that reads like a UN intern’s term paper. As Scrutator has argued in the past, the NDSP II is an aspirational brochure rather than a strategy. What Ntate Matekane needs to is to articulate a clear strategy of attracting FDI into Lesotho.
Ntate Matekane promised Basotho a revolution for prosperity, but three years later we’re stuck in a revolution of PowerPoint slides and photo ops and numerous investment missions to foreign countries which are not bearing much fruit. Expensive investment missions and conferences bloom like summer weeds; none seem to yield real fruits. The Prime Minister and some of his cabinet ministers love their drones, helicopters, dashboards, and digital maps, but you can’t eat technology.
Scrutator is still waiting for one, just one, investor who came to Lesotho after watching those televised economic and investment summits filled with promises and pastry platters. Yes, Ntate Matekane has been rightly lauded for building roads and erecting street poles as well as flowering the main Kingsway road, but zillions of Basotho are still going to bed hungry. We need real, sustainable jobs. Ntate Matekane’s push to have ministries create jobs is an illusion. It won’t work. Ministries have never created jobs. They only create per diems for their always travelling ministers and officials.
The Meritocracy Mirage
When Ntate Matekane took office, he rode on the shining horse of “meritocracy.” Only competence, he said, would determine appointments. The old days of nepotism and patronage were over.
Three years later, that noble horse seems to have wandered off into the wilderness. Nepotism seems to run deep. Some old tired political faces — those who have loitered in every administration since King Moshoeshoe I’s reign — remain in plush positions. Those who have been replaced, have been replaced with incompetents.
If this is meritocracy, then perhaps “merit” now means “political loyalty dressed in designer suits.” The once-promised clean government has turned into a family reunion. Some ministries now look like job-creation schemes for cousins and campaign funders.
Scrutator had hoped the Prime Minister would replace the “friends and family plan” with the “skills and competence plan.” Instead, we got the “photo-friendly plan” — good optics, poor outcomes.
GASRTT: The Vanishing Act
And then came the great anticlimax — the dissolution of the Government Assets Recovery Task Team (GASRTT). That, dear readers, is where Matekane’s halo began to rust.
The GASRTT was established in 2022 under his own office to track and reclaim stolen state property. It was bold, necessary, and even symbolic of the “new dawn” he promised. For a moment, Basotho dared to believe that, finally, someone would chase the looters.
Then — poof — the task team vanished, dissolved overnight in a cloud of bureaucratic smoke. The official excuse? It lacked “a proper legal foundation.” Which begs the obvious question: was nobody in government aware of this for three whole years?
If the team was illegal from day one, then the Prime Minister presided over illegality. If it became illegal only when it started sniffing too close to powerful figures, then we’re witnessing the oldest trick in Lesotho’s political book — killing reform before it kills your friends.
Rumours swirled that the team had begun probing sensitive cases involving high-ranking officials, perhaps even the Prime Minister himself. Whether true or not, dissolving it mid-investigation was political suicide. The optics were disastrous. It screamed: we will fight corruption — until it fights back.
A government that cannot gazette its own anti-corruption task force has no moral authority to lecture anyone on good governance.
Accountability Deferred, Trust Denied
Even our mostly pedantic senators have squirmed. Dissolving GASRTT without transparency has crippled public trust. Instead of explaining, the government retreated behind dismissive sound bites and vague reassurances.
When citizens asked for clarity, officials responded as if accountability were an optional extra. “The work will resume once legal issues are resolved,” they said — the political equivalent of “the cheque is in the mail.”
Three years into his term, Matekane’s government risks being seen not as revolutionary, but reactionary. The “Revolution for Prosperity” is beginning to sound like a Rebranding for Preservation.
If the Prime Minister truly believed in transparency, he would have published the task team’s progress report, named the cases, and set timelines for the new legally compliant body. Instead, silence reigns — thick, suspicious, and telling.
Basotho have seen this movie before. Every administration begins with trumpet blasts of reform, only to end with the same refrain: due process, legal technicalities, ongoing investigations. Translation: nothing will happen.
Communication Breakdown
Even the government’s communication strategy has been a masterclass in mismanagement. When faced with legitimate questions, it accuses the media of “deliberate distortions.” When citizens express doubt, it calls them “misinformed.”
A transparent government doesn’t fear questions — it answers them convincingly. Instead, the Prime Minister’s office behaves like a fortress of arrogance, issuing statements that sound like royal decrees rather than democratic explanations.
If Ntate Matekane wants to distinguish himself from the failed leaders he replaced, he must learn that secrecy breeds suspicion. In the digital age, silence isn’t golden; it’s incriminating.
From Sprinter to Marathon Man
Still, Scrutator won’t deny Matekane one last compliment: endurance. In a country addicted to political drama, simply surviving three years in State House is an Olympic-level accomplishment.
He’s tamed his coalition partners, subdued his detractors, and even learned to sleep through opposition tantrums. For that, he earns a medal in political resilience.
But endurance without delivery is just jogging in circles. Basotho did not elect a marathon runner; they elected a problem-solver. As 2027 approaches, the patience that once greeted him with applause will demand results — real jobs, real reforms, real accountability.
If Ntate Matekane wants to be remembered as the man who changed Lesotho, not just the one who lasted the longest, he must rekindle the courage that put him in office. He must prove that his revolution for prosperity isn’t a marketing slogan but a measurable reality.
For now, Scrutator salutes him — not for what he has achieved, but for what he has managed to avoid losing. Surviving Lesotho’s political jungle is no small feat. But history won’t remember survivors; it remembers transformers.
So, yes, Prime Minister, enjoy your third-year celebrations. Just remember, it’s not how long you run that matters. It’s where you finish — and whether anyone’s still following you by then. You don’t want to finish the race, but leave Basotho still stuck at the starting line.
Ache!!!
