Pascalinah Kabi
NEWLY-APPOINTED Director General of the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Offences (DCEO) Mahlomola Manyokole has warned his brother, Ministry of Health principal secretary Lefu Manyokole, to “operate strictly by the book” or risk prosecution.
Mahlomola Manyokole, who was appointed to the DCEO top job on 8 July 2019, said he had taken an oath to diligently serve the anticorruption body without fear and favour. He said he would not hesitate to investigate the Ministry of Health where his older brother Mr Lefu Manyokole, serves as principal secretary.
Family ties will not stand in the way of any investigations if the DCEO was tipped off about possible corruption in that ministry, he said.
The Ministry of Health has been in the spotlight after its finance office in Maseru was gutted by fire during the early hours of last Wednesday.
Police are still investigating the cause of the fire which destroyed valuable documents. The fire also affected another office on the third floor of the building before being extinguished by the Lesotho Mounted Police’s Fire Brigade department.
Lefu Manyokole said although the fire had destroyed some crucial documents, there was no substantial loss as they had back-up documents in other offices. There have been widespread allegations that the fire could have been a deliberate inside job by some ministry officials to destroy documents and cover up for alleged tender irregularities surrounding the proposed demolition of the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital.
The hospital is supposed to be demolished to make way for the construction of the M800 million Maseru District hospital financed by the Export Import Bank of China.
The demolition has however, been delayed as the ministries of health and public works are said to be at loggerheads over the awarding of a M12 million demolition tender.
In an exclusive interview with the Lesotho Times this week, Mahlomola Manyokole said he was determined to hit the ground running in tackling corruption wherever it reared its head. He said his filial ties with Lefu Manyokole would not stand in the way of investigations if ever they became necessary.
“I took an oath of this office and he (Lefu Manyokole) knows I am here,” the DCEO boss told this publication.
“If he (Lefu Manyokole) did anything wrong he would have to be ashamed because you don’t want to be embarrassed by your younger brother or somebody who is more like your son.
“I think that I should send a strong message to him that he should behave and do things accordingly. If there is anything about the health ministry here (at the DCEO), and I am sure there must have been reports on health, we should go after them. We should not have any problems doing so,” Mahlomola Manyokole said.
He however, said there were procedures to recuse himself if ever he felt conflicted when it came to investigating his own brother.
He said instead of putting DCEO officers under pressure, he would ask the police to take over any investigation concerning his brother if he felt there was likely to be a conflict of interest.
“But if I feel comfortable (prosecuting a case against Lefu Manyokole) I will go to court. In Lesotho we are a small community and most of us are related. But I need to do my work because if I had to consider that somebody is my brother, I will never do my work. This is a big task and it has to be done well.”
He said he would work flat to restore the image of the DCEO which had earned the reputation of being a toothless bulldog and ensure that it becomes the best performing anticorruption organisation in Africa. He said under his stewardship, the DCEO would leave petty crimes to the police and go after the big high profile cases which involved the theft of huge amounts of money.
He said it was irrational for the anticorruption body to employ so many prosecutors to chase after petty criminals who paid M200 bribes when there were cases involving the theft of millions of maloti. He said there was also a need to either have a judge specialising in the prosecution of economic crimes.
“I don’t want to do things the old way where we had a lot of cases, a lot of chuff that is best suited to be handled by the police. Sometimes we seem to be duplicating police work. I only want us to go after the high profile cases.
“High profile cases are not only of those of politically exposed persons like the former Deputy Prime Minister (Mothetjoa Metsing) or the president of the Senate (‘Mamonaheng Mokitimi). High profile also means those cases with a big monetary value.
“I want to go after cases of serious economic offences. I want to go after the mining contracts, the mining sector and the construction industry. The government invests a lot of money in construction and the mining sector which contributes more than any other industry to tax revenue.
“When I go to court, I want to ensure that I do not go there just to pile up DCEO cases. There should be a judge to specifically deal with economic offences so that when we take cases to court, they are expedited and not mixed up with the other cases. Economic offences have to be handled separately and given priority.
“I wouldn’t want to abuse public resources by repeatedly going to court for nothing. I want us to go there and when we go there we must go for the jugular,” Mahlomola Manyokole said.
