Mohalenyane Phakela
OPPOSITION parties yesterday slated the proposed 2017/2018 announced by Finance Minister Moeketsi Majoro, saying it had deficiencies which rendered it incapable of addressing the country’s major challenges and stimulating economic growth.
Dr Majoro tabled a proposed M18, 7 billion budget (up from last year’s M17, 4 billion) before parliament yesterday in Maseru.
Some of the key proposed budget allocations include the following: Small Business and Enterprise (M211.9 million), Tourism, Environment and Culture (M220.8 million), Agriculture and food Security (M483.4 million) and Mining (M36.2 million).
The Water ministry will be allocated (M892.3 million), Energy (M316.5 million), Public Works and Transport (M916 million) and Communications, Science and Technology (M120 million).
Education and Training will receive M3 billion, Health (M2.5 billion), Finance (M1492.8 million) and Trade and Industry (M194.8 million).
Despite the marginal increase from last year, there was a general consensus among opposition parties that the budget was woefully short on solutions to address the country’s challenges.
Leader of the Opposition, Mathibeli Mokhothu, from the Democratic Congress party yesterday told the Lesotho Times that Dr Majoro had succeeded in pointing the country’s problems but failed to table the solutions.
“A national budget is a major tool that those in power use to fulfil the promises they made to people who put them in power but then we did not find this budget to address such issues except for the M700 for the old age (pensions up from M580) which they allocated as promised,” Mr Mokhothu said.
“Dr Majoro is one of the most educated people to hold the Finance portfolio and we had hoped he would be the perfect candidate to show us how to boost the economy.
However, he just tabled the problems faced by the country and not the plans to eradicate such problems.
“Firstly, I would point out the issue of infrastructure. He just showed that they will improve it but as to how they plan to do so he did not explain.”
He said one of the issues the minister could have touched is the construction of the road to Sehlabathebe National Park as one of the measures to boost tourism.
He also said Dr Majoro merely complained of the shrinking of the country’s share of revenues from the Southern African Customs Union but failed to provide satisfactory alternatives his government would explore.
“The other issue is of unemployment which continues to be a problem for this country. I noticed that the Minister did say that they will inject more money into the Ministry of Small Businesses to fund corporations, which I believe are for uneducated people so what will happen to the graduates?
“The government said the education system is very poor but they did not point out what makes it poor or how they intend to improve it?
“To see a problem and fail to provide a solution is no different from completely ignoring the problem. It is not only about those in power but all of us have to help develop the country,” he said.
On the other hand, the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) spokesperson, Teboho Sekata, said they were pleased with parts of the budget that were derived from the proposed budget which was prepared by the previous government which included the LCD but could not be presented after the collapse of the former regime in March 2017.
“This is the budget that we had prepared for this fiscal year (2017/2018) but failed to present it due to the change of government.
“We are pleased that it was presented the way we had prepared it while we were still government.
“However, we are very much concerned with the fact that we had proposed that civil servants get a 15% wage increment but then the new government reduced that to 3% which is very disturbing,” Mr Sekata said.
He said they had also proposed that factory workers get a 9 percent wage increase but again this was reduced to 7 percent. He said this defied logic because factory workers’ salaries were not paid by the government.
“In the same budget we had already planned to increase the pensions for old people by M120 to M700 up from the M580.
“When this current government was campaigning before the elections, they had promised to increase it to M1400 which only proves that was just a political strategy to garner votes,” he added.
Popular Front for Democracy (PFD) leader Lekhetho Rakuoane said that the 3 percent increase was an insult to civil servants.
“The inflation rate is 6% but civil servants get half of that which we find to be quite an insult to them.
“They (government) do not realise that the civil servants are the major cause of government sabotage for they are the ones who provide services to the public and if they are not satisfied they will therefore provide poor services,” Mr Rakuoane said.
He said while the government had done well by raising the pensions for the old people to M700. They however failed to fulfil their election pledge to lower the pension age to 60 from 70.
“We also see other plans as just farfetched dreams. For instance, the Minister indicated that they intend to inspect every school around the country by March next year but the question is whether we have enough inspectors and how will they reach all the schools as some are in remote areas?”
He said Dr Majoro also failed to explain how they would reduce the high expenditure incurred through the hiring and firing of high ranking government officials every time the government changed hands.
