By Billy Ntaote
QUTHING — Prime Minister Thomas Thabane bemoaned the appalling state of roads within the Tele constituency as well as the Tele Bridge connecting Lesotho the Eastern Cape Province.
Addressing a party rally in the Tele constituency on Sunday Thabane said it was shocking that 47 years after Lesotho gained its independence “there are still no tarred roads where they are needed”.
Even more shocking, Thabane said, that former Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili travelled countrywide for the sod-turning of projects “most of which never took off”.
“There was sod-turning here years ago by former Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili for the construction of a tarred road which has never been built,” Thabane said.
“It is outrageous that the past administrations failed to build a proper tarred road on a route connecting the many villages in this constituency and the border gate which serve a huge population.”
Thabane said it was amazing that people were complaining of the lack of proper roads when in the last poll “you elected somebody who has only ever done sod-turning”.
“People are crying that they do not have a tarred road to the Tele Bridge. But the same people have always been electing someone who was always busy turning the sod all over the country without any roads being constructed,” Thabane said.
The irony, Thabane said, was that immediately after the establishment of the ABC in 2006, Tele was one of the first constituencies he visited and campaigned for his party to be elected.
“But I was surprised when the results were announced and Mosisili’s party had won,” Thabane said.
“So you have been electing him because of the sod turning and you have always been cheering him on and ululating as he did the sod turning without any schools being built.”
Pointing to a nearby quarry and an uncovered pit, Thabane said he wondered what those in power were doing “when your roads are still in this miserable state”.
It was surprising, the ABC leader said, that contrary to the laws of Lesotho, construction companies across the country were queuing to dig pits “to mine stones for road construction”.
“All the white construction companies are taking their money back home without filling the quarries they leave behind,” Thabane said.
He said officers given the authority to ensure that construction companies fill such quarries are taking bribes and letting “the whiteman get away without having filled the open pits everywhere in this country.”
The quarry digging business was a nuisance to villagers, Thabane said, because they did not have decent roads while stone was being “mined from your region and taken to build roads elsewhere”.
“Where is the justice in all this? And this has been ongoing since independence,” Thabane said.
