Gabashane Masupha
IN many countries facing complex developmental, economic and governance challenges such as Lesotho, there is a growing and deeply troubling trend of allowing unqualified individuals to present themselves as analysts, experts, or authorities on matters that require serious principles and professional understanding.
This practice is not only irresponsible; it is a threat to sound policymaking. Policymakers must confront a harsh but necessary truth: analysis conducted without proper academic and professional grounding is not analysis at all.
It is, at best, speculation dressed as insight and, at worst, a form of national misdirection that leads entire countries down the wrong path. We see this in the mainstream media (TV, newspapers, radio).
The spread of false or poorly informed analyses has become an epidemic. When individuals lacking qualifications attempt to interpret technical, legal, economic, or scientific matters, the outcome is predictably flawed.
It feeds the society baseless perspectives and perpetuates continual social stress. Their conclusions tend to be rooted in personal beliefs, informal experience, or superficial observations rather than rigorous evidence.
These analytical mistakes do not remain confined to the mouths of those who make them but spread outward into media, public discussion, and eventually into the minds of ordinary citizens.
In this way, a single unqualified voice can misinform an entire nation, distorting public understanding and influencing decisions that carry national consequences.
This problem is particularly harmful to societies where the public relies heavily on commentators to explain complex issues. Unqualified analysts often speak with great confidence, even when their understanding is shallow.
Look, proximity does not qualify anyone to be that which they are proximate to. Policymakers may mistake confidence for competence, and once misinformation enters official channels, it becomes extremely difficult to correct.
As a result, policies may be shaped by misleading narratives rather than accurate data and professional insight. Such governance results in costly errors, misdirected resources, weakened institutions, and long-term developmental setbacks.
This trend is also a profound insult to the many professionals who have invested years studying, researching, and building mastery in their fields.
These individuals endured rigorous training not as a form of elitism, but because the matters they specialise in are genuinely complex and cannot be understood through experience alone.
When governments and institutions elevate unqualified figures over trained experts, they send a damaging message: that education does not matter, that professionalism is optional, and that expertise can be replaced by mere longevity.
This directly undermines the value of academic and professional standards, while demoralising those who have worked tirelessly to maintain them. Nowadays people who were never peer reviewed are elevated to the expert floor because of “they have been around longer to know better”.
Experience, while important, is not a substitute for expertise. Experience may reveal what has happened in the past, but expertise explains why it happened, how it happened, and what will happen in the future.
Technical fields from medicine to economics, from engineering to law, from robotics to political science, require deep theoretical understanding, in addition to practical exposure. Without the balance of both, analytical errors become inevitable and such errors then become the seeds of national confusion and policy failure.
For any nation to progress responsibly, policymakers must enforce stricter expectations when it comes to voices that are allowed to guide public understanding and influence government decisions.
It is not enough for someone to have “been in the field” for many years. Professional qualifications exist for a reason: they equip individuals with the conceptual tools and scientific principles necessary to evaluate information accurately.
Allowing untrained analysts to dominate public discourse is a disservice to the nation and a violation of the trust that citizens place in their leaders.
It is time for those who shape laws, regulations, and national discussions to recognise the gravity of this issue. Countries cannot afford to be guided by guesses, opinions, or half-formed interpretations masquerading as expert insight.
The respect and prioritisation of qualified professionals must be restored urgently. The long-term prosperity and stability of any nation depend on decisions rooted in true expertise, not in the loudest voice or the most familiar face.
National progress requires discipline and standards. Above all, it requires leaders who value and prioritise genuine expertise. The future of any country depends on putting qualified professionals at the forefront of analysis and decision-making.
This practice is not optional, it is essential, and neglecting it must stop immediately.
This must be enforced with respect to social contract and ethical compliance. Maybe by curing this plague of unqualified analysts, we’ll birth new, sound conversations in offices, 4+1 transit, shopping queues, family and friends gathering or just anywhere where the status quo qualifies and opens for discussion.
