…confirms gvt has cut ties with NIKUV
Mohloai Mpesi
PRIME Minister Sam Matekane has assured the nation that his government is working hard to overcome the passport and identity card crisis that has crippled citizens.
He said the government had contracted a new company to manufacture passports and IDs after terminating its contract with controversial Israeli company Nikuv International Projects which had long enjoyed the contract to produce the critical documents.
Nikuv had nonetheless been a mere middleman and the government was now dealing directly with the manufacturer.
According to Mr Matekane, the new company whose name he would not reveal, was contracted after his government decided to cut ties with Nikuv.
Mr Matekane said they had to let Nikuv go as the company was no longer able to deliver on its mandate as per its contractual obligations. This newspaper understands that Nikuv has gone bankrupt and can no longer meet its financial obligations.
Mr Matekane was responding to a Lesotho Times question posed during the premier’s media briefing at State House on Tuesday at which he reported back to the nation on his recent official trip to the People’s Republic of China for the Forum of China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit.
The Lesotho Times asked the premier to comment on the chaos reigning at the Department of Home Affairs, particularly its inability to issue citizens with passports and IDs, a situation which had left thousands of Basotho stranded.
A confident Mr Matekane assured the nation that the problem would “soon become history”.
According to Mr Matekane, the government through the Minister of Local Government, Chieftainship, Home Affairs and Police, Lebona Lephema, had met with the new unnamed company.
That company would deal directly with the government, without Nikuv or any other middleman’s involvement, the premier said.
“We started this new journey of going directly to the company that manufactures passports. These issues take time, and they have taken a lot of time. Right now, we can get passports directly from the manufacture without a go-between company,” Mr Matekane said.
“The people who manufacture the passports and IDs are not only focusing on us. They have a lot of work. So, we are trying to see if, perhaps if we can have two companies that manufacture passports and IDs for us, then things will be okay.”
He said the new company would brief Cabinet this week.
Lesotho’s Department of Home Affairs has not issued IDs in over a year, rendering Basotho helpless as they cannot get critical services without credible means of identity.
Mr Matekane said there were now 120 000 IDs at the Department of Home Affairs, ready to be issued. The documents arrived last week, he said.
“Right now, as we speak, there are 120 000 IDs that arrived last week. I have received a report that some passports are there, but they are not too many. So, people who need urgent services will be helped. I am told that next month, there will be another bulk coming in,” Mr Matekane said.
Mr Matekane said Nikuv had several contracts with his government, including being the middleman between Lesotho and the IDs and passports manufacturer.
However, despite being paid by the government, Nikuv could not fulfil its end of the bargain, prejudicing Lesotho in the process, Mr Matekane said.
Concerned by the unwarranted delays in delivering IDs and passports, Mr Matekane said his government had engaged Nikuv and it had owned up that it could no longer fulfil its obligations, citing problems it was encountering in Israel. The contract was as a result “amicably terminated”.
“This situation has always been unpleasant to us. When we assumed government, there was a company contracted. It was a go-between. The passports and IDs were sought through that company,” Mr Matekane said.
“There were delays in delivering IDs and passports. By the time we talked with that company (Nikuv), they informed us that they were having problems hence were unable to help us. That was because while this company had been given money, it could not transfer such funds to the company that manufactures IDs and passports.
“I wrote to that company (Nikuv), inviting them to come to Lesotho for discussions. The company indeed came, and I called all relevant government departments to that meeting. They told us that according to problems that Israel as a country is having, they were unable to honour the contractual agreement.”
They had, therefore, reached the mutual decision to terminate the contract, forcing them to seek other alternatives.
“We told them that since they had many contracts with the government of Lesotho, we specifically wanted termination of the contract related to passports and IDs and we all agreed. The contract was terminated,” he said.
The prime Minister thus promised the long drawn crisis will soon go to bed as the government had taken “advanced steps to overcome it”.
Nikuv was controversially awarded a contract to computerise the country’s border control system and produce electronic passports, birth and death certificates and national Identity Documents (IDs), without a tender process, in 2012.
Bribery and corruption charges would later be levelled against the then Principal Secretary (PS) of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Retšelisitsoe Khetsi, for allegedly receiving M5 million to influence the awarding of the M300 million tender to Nikuv.
Nikuv was found guilty by a court in Israel of bribing Mr Khetsi in order to advance the company’s business interests in Lesotho in 2016. The company was, therefore, fined NIS4.5 million (US$1.15 million) by a Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court for the offence.
However in Lesotho, Mr Khetsi was charged with corruption and abuse of office alongside 43-year-old South African, Motsotuoa Makoa for receiving bribe from Nikuv.
