SO the government would have the nation believe that the impending departure of Lesotho Defence Force (LDF) commander Lieutenant-General Tlali Kamoli from the helm of the Lesotho Defence Force (LDF) is in merely part of its decision to implement the roadmap of reforms.
As we report elsewhere, Government Secretary Lebohang Ramohlanka announced this week that Lt-Gen Kamoli would retire and hand over command of the LDF to his deputy Major-General Khoantle Motšomotšo on 1 December 2016.
Ms Ramohlanka said the decision was made after negotiations “on a mutually agreeable solution” regarding Lt-Gen Kamoli’s future.
And Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili’s spokesperson Motumi Ralejoe said in all this, the government was merely following a roadmap it submitted to the 36th Ordinary Southern African Development Community (SADC) Summit of Heads of State held in Swaziland in August this year.
The reality is probably not as simple as that, coming as it did shortly after the visit by US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Linda Thomas-Greenfield who said Lesotho risked losing out on the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) facility and a second compact grant under the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) due to government’s failure to address issues of “impunity and the rule of law”.
AGOA gives duty-free and quota-free access to the US market to eligible Sub-Saharan African countries including Lesotho.
The question is why engage in this kind of brinkmanship where we risk the jobs and livelihoods of tens of thousands of Basotho just to serve the interests of just one individual?
Did we really need to subject ourselves to all this unnecessary pressure to do what we could have easily done in the beginning in line with SADC recommendations? We can only hope the lesson has been learnt and henceforth there will be uninterrupted progress in the implementation of outstanding reforms.
Two steps backwards
THERE is a cartoon of four athletes competing on the race track that frequently does the rounds on social media where one, probably foolhardy contestant decides to run in the opposite direction ensuring the he would never win the race no matter how fast he runs. The behavior by our government in seeking to ban Facebook and Twitter is no different from this cartoon character. In the marathon race towards socio-economic development in a world which is ever shrinking, most countries have embraced and harnessed the benefits offered by technology in the form of social media where Facebook and Twitter have played a crucial role in creating networks and business synergies. It goes without saying that these platforms have proved to be cheap affordable means of communication and yet our government wants to take a great many steps backwards in the direction of the Stone Age.
As we report elsewhere, Vodacom Lesotho and Econet Telecom Lesotho have both received letters requesting them to justify why Facebook and Twitter should not be suspended.
It was not very long ago when the country was hailed for taking giant strides in implementing reforms to enhance the ease of doing business in the country. Just as we rightly praised them, now we urge the authorities to seriously re-think this measure which is retrogressive. As one analyst pointed out this is not the best way of stemming abuse of social media. After all, free speech and expression are constitutionally guaranteed. There are legal remedies where these are abused and as such there is no need for the kind of severe measures that would have made Draco very proud. There is absolutely no need to shoot ourselves in the foot and draw negative attention to ourselves through measures that undermine civil liberties.
