Bereng Mpaki
SIX of the country’s political parties this week agreed on the need to prioritise policies to grow the economy in the aftermath of Saturday’s snap elections.
The parties, namely, the All Basotho Convention (ABC), Basotho National Party (BNP), Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD), Democratic Congress (DC), Majalefa Development Movement (MDM) and the Movement for Economic Change (MEC) participated at The Hook Up Dinner (THUD) – Election Debate on Tuesday night.
THUD is a monthly event that provides a platform to prospective entrepreneurs to pitch their business ideas to potential investors and prominent business people who can mentor them.
The event is organised by The Entrepreneurs Network (TEN), a non-profit platform of programmes and initiatives aimed at growing an entrepreneurial ecosystem that will become a think tank for creating jobs, accelerating innovation and strengthening good entrepreneurial and professional practice.
However, in light of the current election mode ahead of Saturday’s snap polls, Tuesday’s event deviated from the norm and political parties were invited to pitch on what they intended to do for entrepreneurship and the business community if elected into power.
The presentations were made in the presence of an adjudication panel comprising Lesotho Chamber of Commerce and Industry executive member, Simon Phafane, change agent Lerata Pekane and Phelane Phomane from TEN.
ABC representative, Moeketsi Majoro said his party would end the wrong culture where joining politics was seen as the ticket out of poverty.
He said this had resulted in a situation where the economy was stagnant because the country ended up being run by people who utterly clueless about the economy.
Dr Majoro said the ABC would work to remove constraints to doing business by facilitating a dialogue between government and the private sector to agree on the constraints that needed to be addressed.
Dr Majoro’s sentiments were echoed by the DC and LCD representative, Joshua Setipa who said Basotho had allowed politics to divide them to the detriment of the economy.
He said growing the economy was a collective responsibility where all sectors had to play their roles, adding, the government’s role was to create an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive.
He further said they would focus on domestic investment which had been neglected.
“For the past 51 years, we have focused primarily on the foreign direct investment-driven economic strategy. We have focused on building the economic infrastructure and we have totally overlooked the importance of domestic investment. So, that is what we are doing already,” Mr Setipa said.
The BNP’s Felleng Makeka said her party would promote entrepreneurship among marginalised groups like youth and women by establishing a development bank.
“We will give them access to finance opportunities. The mainstream banking system right now does not cater for entrepreneurship in Lesotho. It is skewed and does not promote entrepreneurship among youth in particular.
“What we need is a comprehensive youth development programme which is supported by a very strong access to financial needs and for that we will come up with a bank for the youth and women specifically to support entrepreneurship.”
MDM’s Manama Letsie said his party would focus on developing the small and medium enterprises as the sector accounts for a large part of the economy.
Mr Letsie said they would reduce tax to encourage internal trade. He said they would also introduce a bureau of standards so that local products would have a competitive value.
They would also reform the public procurement regime to ensure that tenders valued at less than M45 Million were reserved for locals. He said that would help localise the country’s economy.
In addition, MDM would revive state-owned enterprises to ensure economic development in collaboration with the private sector.
For her part, MEC’s Tsepang Mosena said they would reduce the loan amount to be paid back to government by students who ventured into entrepreneurship upon completing their studies.
She also said they would protect the local industry from unfair competition from international firms.
