REVOLUTION for Prosperity (RFP) spokesperson, Mokhethi Shelile, has described opposition parliamentarians as a bunch of criminals working tirelessly to destabilise the government because they fear being rendered irrelevant by Prime Minister Sam Matekane’s “excellent record” in service delivery.
In a recent one-on-one interview with the Lesotho Times’ (LT) political reporter, Mohloai Mpesi, Mr Shelile who doubles as Minister of Trade, Industry and Business Development, said opposition parties were “clutching at straws” because they realised that Mr Matekane’s government was “unstoppable in executing its mandate of service delivery”. The opposition were thus soliciting public sympathy through “unverified, fabricated lies” to destabilise the premier.
The Lesotho Mounted Police Services (LMPS) arrested the leader of Socialist Revolutionaries (SR), Teboho Mojapela, mid-October last year while the Special Operations Unit (SOU), stormed Basotho National Party (BNP) leader Machesetsa Mofomobe’s home in November of the same year, alleging that he was in possession of an illegal 9mm firearm, suspected to have been used in the murder of a party member during the BNP elective conference in Mazenod in 2021.
Later in December 2023, Official Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, Mathibeli Mokhothu’s bodyguards were withdrawn for a few days.
However, Mr Shelile defended these acts, saying that the primary mandate of the police service was to enforce the law, and that “they are right to arrest anyone who violates the law”.
LT: The opposition has always been vocal about Mr Matekane’s incompetence when it comes to leading the country. Some within society are beginning to believe it, claiming not to see discernible progress in resolving the country’s myriad crises. What is the government going to do to earn back the trust that catapulted Mr Matekane to power in October 2022?
Shelile: I don’t believe there is any quarter of people who have turned against the RFP because everywhere I go, I find people happy about RFP. If you look at social media right now, someone made a post that RFP doesn’t have numbers, most comments voting against that post outweigh those that supports the post.
Machesetsa (Mofomobe) on his social media is supported by some people, which is natural. But if you judge his posts in a negative way, he deletes your comment or unfriends you. They will not allow you to say anything contrary to the narrative they want to push.
Those who say ntate Ntsokoane (Matekane) is unable to lead; what do they mean? Within what time frame? I don’t even want to talk about timeframes because this government has achieved a lot in a short time. Construction of roads is ongoing right now. More are going to be repaired and new roads are going to be built.
We are beginning to have a very stable health system. It is now history of yesterday where we would hear the outcry of insufficient medications in hospitals. Things are stable, and our budget is very balanced, and operating in a way that it was intended to. It is quite seldom that we hear of government officials complaining about no payments due to a broke government.
I was with the entertainment industry people recently and one of them, a very well-known individual, said I should tell ntate Sam that ever since he started doing this thing (supporting the entertainment industry), ‘all our events are very successful’. You can go to Shorts and Shades event, LETOFE, Roof of Africa and Maletsunyane Braai Festival and you will see that there was a positive change this last year.
About the Braai Festival, there was an accident that happened on the road after the event. A helicopter and ambulance service company swiftly rushed to the scene and helped people. A functional government is like that.
So, the opposition’s job is to oppose. I really don’t think we should be quoting them and talking about them and pursuing their phantom non-performance narrative that they are trying to feed the people. There is nothing like that and it will never be.
They are just a team of people who realise that they are going to be rendered irrelevant by the end of this government’s tenure, if not by the end of this second year because of this government’s performance. They are going to be very irrelevant, and people are starting to realise that.
They have never done the things that we have done in this short time when they were in government. They would wait for elections time and start doing unconvincing projects like repairing the roads whereas they had been doing zilch all along.
We found Basotho depending so much on donations and short-term jobs like Lihalahala (food for work projects) because those people governed this country for the longest time without developing Lesotho so that Basotho can get sustainable jobs.
We are now pursuing long-term solutions to give Basotho sustainable jobs.
LT: Do you think the opposition is deliberately disturbing the government from executing its mandate freely?
Shelile: Yes, it is expected from the opposition, but there are issues which are of national interest. Issues that are bipartisan in nature. There are national matters; the issue of national reforms is a national issue. It is not an RFP matter. We found them (opposition) presiding over the reforms but now they are taking ta hardline stance against the reforms.
They can oppose but there are those things that we are supposed to work together because they affect all Basotho. So, they have a tendency to forget that at the end of the day we are Basotho.
LT: There is a statement that His Majesty made at the National University of Lesotho (NUL)’s Annual Value Based Leadership Lecturer Series in November 2023, where he said he blamed lack of strong political leadership for the country’s failure to prosper for over half a century. What do you make of that statement?
Shelile: I don’t want to interpret His Majesty’s speech, but I agree with him because we have a critical problem of leadership, and not loving this country by those that call themselves leaders of this country.
You get elected and when you get into parliament, you change and follow another party and its mandates, a party under whose banner you were not elected.
You lose elections thoroughly and you say you are going to gobble up some numbers in the House (National Assembly) without going through the electoral process. You seek to overthrow the government in parliament. These are things that make governments to be unstable.
We have not been stable since the induction of these coalition governments and that problem births underdevelopment. The police and army didn’t have equipment as do hospitals. So, all these things stem from the instability at the level of political leadership.
We allow all these things to even get into the chambers of the parliament and then people start filing no confidence motions against the Prime Minister. That’s toppling the government.
I have worked the whole year to ensure that factories are opened. If I leave, who is going to sit here and carry on with the plans that I have made? Even if I leave this office with every plan written down, you will not execute them in a way that will profit the country because I am the one who planned them. Everything stops.
LT: Given the struggle surrounding the reforms, the second Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) development Compact might not see the light of the day if the reforms process is not completed before March. Your thoughts?
Shelile: It is true, and that problem is caused by the very same opposition. When you are opposition and determined to destroy things that matter…. you will face the same problems when your turn to lead comes.
They allowed many factories to be closed at such a high rate. It is a problem that nobody wants to face, even if you are the opposition, don’t mess with the textile market. Make sure it flourishes so that the next government will continue smoothly.
There is a company in Ha-Thetsane which spent around USD5 million (M93 million) to build. They operated only for a few months and had to close shop. It is a huge building of about 18 000 square meters. They have new machines which are not operating because the government at that time, decided not to create a conducive environment for those investors. That company employed around 11 000 people.
LT: Still on the issue of the textile sector, whose appeal to the US market seems to be dwindling, what is your ministry doing to ensure that the thousands of factory workers who lost their jobs throughout 2019 to 2023 get employment? What new industries is government looking to explore now that there seems to be less appeal for investment in the textile sector?
Shelile: We are going to get a government budget; we are going to propose it now because we are ready. Last year we were not ready because we didn’t know what was happening.
Now I know that I am going to ask for a certain amount which I believe will be availed. It is going to help make a complete turnaround of the way we do business. It is not true that orders are unavailable, they are there.
Otherwise, last year, other countries’ textile sectors couldn’t have improved. Countries like Tanzania for instance, increased their AGOA textiles exports by about 129 percent. Countries like Kenya, Ethiopia increased with around 50 percent and Lesotho declined by 10 percent.
So, we can’t say it is because there are no orders for clothes. We are the odd ones out; something is wrong with the way we have been doing things. We now know what we must change. We are changing, fundamentally our approach to the markets. We are no longer going to rely on Cut, Make and Trim (CMT).
We are now helping those factories that are interested to go straight to the market and come with orders. They are going to do everything in the country including designing.
Currently we are doing smaller orders. Come April, May and June when we have access to a good budget, we are going to be unstoppable. We are going to generate more jobs faster.
Everything is coming up, even in the textile industry things are coming up. By month end we would have created about 800 jobs. We have already managed to save up to 1 200 jobs in Maputsoe (at Ace Apparel).
LT: Now onto political events that caught public attention in 2023. We saw the motion of no confidence filed in parliament and a few days after that there were some opposition members arrested like Teboho Mojapela. Later on, Machesetsa Mofomobe’s house was raided and Mathibeli Mokhothu’s bodyguards withdrawn. In all these incidents, they said they were being persecuted because they had touched a raw nerve. Can you say the government really wanted to scare them off?
Shelile: If there was an indisputable fact, like Mr Matekane shot a person on the street, therefore we no longer have confidence in him, the story would then be different. But their no confidence motion had no basis whatsoever. It is just a bunch of people who have this unquenchable desire to overthrow the government and become ministers.
Some of them are running away from criminal prosecutions, because the noose is tightening. They are a bunch of criminals.
About the withdrawal of the bodyguards, I don’t believe it. They fabricate lies every day. I only realised yesterday that a bodyguard at the gate at my home was absent, and for 24 hours. It was an issue of administration at the army.
As for others, they are arrested because of their actions, they are not better off just because they are in parliament. The law applies to everyone. The police will raid them if they are doing filthy things.
LT: We saw the three security agency chiefs making a joint statement on 16 November 2023, at the height of the motion for the no-confidence vote, that the MPs should focus on the reforms instead of their motion. Some of the opposition leaders have asserted that the government is breathing through the barrel of the gun because the security agencies are protecting Mr Matekane from being toppled, and that the government bought the courts to delay Lejone Puseletso’s case challenging the motion. Your opinion?
Shelile: I don’t like commenting about the statement that the security agencies made, not that I do not agree with it or agree with it. But here is the thing: they took an oath of allegiance to the Constitution. They realise that certain things must be done to develop and promote the interests of Basotho. So there is nothing wrong with them asking politicians to do the right thing for the country. Then you have these power-hungry people who believe that when they have met in the dark and accumulated more numbers to destabilise the government, they are on top of everything… They don’t care whether jobs are created or not.
They (security agencies) did it with clear consciences, knowing what they were saying. Those people have legal resources which are very powerful.
They took the oath to protect the Constitution and having thoroughly assessed the unfolding events or issues that were being raised by the opposition, they formed that opinion that what opposition was doing was incorrect.
LT: There is this narrative out there that when Mr Matekane donated an ambulance and uniform to the army before he unveiled the Revolution for Prosperity (RFP) party, he was bribing security agencies in advance and creating a bond, hence they are now trying at all costs to protect him.
Shelile: The problem is that at the time when the Prime Minister was doing all these things, they (opposition) didn’t complain. How did they allow it to happen at that time? They are simply clutching at straws. When a river flows and they cannot stop it, there is nothing they can do but to clutch at straws.
There is nothing like that in whatever form or shape where the police or army would feel like sacrificing their oath of allegiance to the Constitution of Lesotho just to protect someone who used to buy them uniform.
That’s even disrespecting people saying they can be bought by uniforms. I believe in them (security agencies) when they take their constitutional oath that they will protect the constitution. We have people who fly to Mozambique to fight, all in the name of that Constitution. They take that very seriously.
LT: What do you make of the RFP’s performance in office this past year?
Shelile: It was a very fruitful one. We have many things that we can point to that some men failed to achieve during their time in government. We have improved the economy of this country.
We are still on the course despite the challenges. The biggest challenge is the unavailability of funds. We have been able to pay service providers’ arrears, which previous governments failed to do.
We no longer take services if we don’t have a budget to cater for. If one is awarded a tender, it means we have a budget for it. Yes, we are still struggling in the background, but things are getting better and better. By year four we would have achieved a lot of things. Many things would have improved, and many will not believe it. People have learned through these hard times that we don’t have to be too wasteful.
We have done very well for a young government that just came in. It’s a government of professionals. It’s a pity you don’t sit in cabinet. Otherwise, you would see a big difference in this cabinet compared to previous one. This is a cabinet of people who know what they are doing.
