Who exactly does the crooked Yan Xie — aka John — think he is? And why do Basotho continue letting him get away with murder. Xie is a bad apple who gives all Chinese nationals a bad name. They should ban him from all Chinese restaurants and from the Avani Lesotho casino (thank God it remains closed).
Since coming to Lesotho and buying his citizenship certificate, he has been corruptly stealing money from the government of Lesotho and engaging in all kinds of criminality with gay abandon. He has no sense of shame nor restraint.
Xie never brought any investment here. He did not even establish a Chinese restaurant, the first investment choice for his fellow nationals — before they worm their way into the Lesotho treasury.
He only established his glorified Spaza Shop — Jackpot Supermarket — after he had wormed his way into state lucre and started thieving from poor Basotho.
Even his friend — ex premier Ntate Motsoahae is on record saying — “I first knew John when he came to Lesotho sometime back and when he was very poor then”.
He has become so rich that he no longer joins his fellow countrymen in their other passionate “investment” project; gambling at the casino.
So how does a Chinese man who came here virtually penniless and without even a decent under-garment become so rich so quickly? We all know the story of John. Corruption and more corruption have been his very essence.
The lowest point for me was when John — most probably drunk on his filthy lucre — boasted that he had been paying our politicians from the Ntate Mosisili era up to the Motsoahae coalitions to get his way.
In an interview published by Amabhungane in 2018, Xie essentially openly boasted about how he keeps Lesotho politicians in his pocket.
He boasted about how he had bankrolled Ntate Motsoahae’s 2017 Princess Diana/Prince Charles like wedding to Lady Dee. He boasted about how he had bankrolled another wedding of Thato Nkhahle (nee Mosisili), the daughter of Ntate Mosisili when he was still Prime Minister. He also boasted about how he had funded the birthday party of Ntate Metsing
Upon his second reincarnation as Prime Minister Ntate Motsoahae had appointed Xie to the incongruously titled position of “Head of Special Projects and the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy and Trade Adviser on the China-Asia Trade Network”.
Scrutator has never stopped wandering what Xie did to Ntate Motsoahae for the old codger ABC to devise such a grandiose and extravagant title for him. Bankrolling a wedding — no matter how opulent — is surely no reason for Ntate Motsoahae to have gone that far. Xie should surely have bewitched our Ntate Motsoahae. After all they are known for trusting juju in China. But again, it could be that Ntate Motsoahae was just contended with the crumbs for Xie. After all, he was never known for any avarice. Until Lady Dee hit the seen.
As a career criminal, Xie had never worked in any trade related endeavours. He was not known at both the World Trade Centre and UNTDC. So, what interest of Lesotho was he going to advance and with exactly who in Asia? Who was ever going to take him seriously as a representative of His Majesty’s government? Zilch. And what Lesotho agenda is relevant to the China-Asia trade network after all? Only Ntate Motsoahae knows.
In that 2018 interview, Xie boasted that apart from bankrolling prime ministers, ministers, principal secretaries and MPs, he had funded just about every other political party or politician in Lesotho. It is not often that a crooked businessman comes out to claim that they are bankrolling politicians and even name them.
That would sound their death-knell.
Even though the relationship between a politician and corruption is akin to that of conjoined twins in Lesotho, no politician would want it publicly known that they are being bribed. But there was Xie.
Naming politicians that he had paid without a care. I thought that would be the end of him. I thought Lesotho politicians would be ashamed. I thought they would revoke his fake citizenship and deport him back to Huan so he can be the first victim of Covid. It was not to be.
That did not happen. In fact, our politicians embraced him more. His role in government was even more intensified. Xie then proceeded to expense his state capture project at the expense of Basotho.
Said Ntate Teboho Sekata of the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) then, “there are signs that John is controlling the government”. Of course, he was. He was the real prime minister.
As a major shareholder in Lesotho’s only abattoir, Xie had engineered the ban on red meat imports from South Africa so his project could enjoy a monopoly. He then engineered the state’s controversial policy on wool and mohair, so that another Chinese crook could benefit. He was aptly assisted by Chalane Charlatan Phori.
He then got the Motsoahae coalition to replace the South African-based experienced broker BKB with a Chinese scam operation called Ningbo ETDZ Holdings.
Xie had also boasted in that 2018 interview about how Ntate Motsoahae had lived in his Hillsview Mansion upon his return from his two-year Tlali Kamoli induced sojourn to Ficksburg. Machesetsa Mofomobe spoke in the same interview and confirmed that BNP politicians had been bankrolled by Xie in their individual capacities. He was at pains to explain the BNP had not been funded as a party– as if there was any difference.
But for me the most insulting aspect of Xie’s 2018 interview was his claim that as advisor to Ntate Motsoahae, he had brought major projects “which are all pending approval by the Cabinet”.
Key among these projects was Xie’s plan to export 30 000 Basotho women to China to work as domestic workers.
“Each would earn R 6, 000 a month, three-times more than what they are currently earning in the textile factories,” Xie boasted.
“China currently employs 300 000 domestics from the Philippines, and we only need Lesotho to provide 10 percent of that,” he boasted further.
“The government is just too slow. Everything takes too long for the ministers to approve. Lesotho is behind in so many things because ministers don’t make decisions,” Xie said, lamenting the delays in identifying his 30 000 women exports to China.
Xie boasted again, “I told the government secretary (Mphaka) to keep their salary. What can it do for me? It’s a small amount for me,” he said,
Of course, what would the 38 000 paid to senior government officials do to Xie, when he had essentially been given the keys to the treasury.
If anyone wants confirmation that Xie is a complete scumbag, then please google and read that interview.
So here is a man who has been stealing left right and centre, now belittling the M38 000 wages paid to the very people that have been facilitating his looting? He does not see himself as being worthy of such a paltry salary? In other words, he is telling our PSs and ministers that they are fools.
“Look, the wage you offered me is a pittance. Earn it yourself and facilitate for me to earn a zillionth times that because you are too stupid and I am too clever”; This seems to have been the essence of Xie’s message to our officials.
Here is a man who thinks so low of our women that he thinks they are better off being exported to China to earn M6 000. So, a Mosotho is worth travelling to China to earn only M 6000 yet Xie travels to settle in Lesotho and steal hundreds of millions? What a travesty. At such a wage, it means the women would never afford a ticket to come back to Lesotho. Which means they would have to be enslaved there forever as sexual servants; perhaps Xie’s true aim.
The fact that we have hosted this scumbag for so long and even awarded him citizenship should shame us all.
But why have I made Xie a topic of discussion this week. I am miffed by reports that he has been stealing more of our money by charging the now disbanded and corrupt National Emergency Command Centre (NECC) M53 000 in rentals a day for its use of the “Manthabiseng Convention Centre, itself a government property corruptly outsourced to Xie’s company for management.
This is yet another stinking deal facilitated for Xie by our corrupt politicians. I would wish to know the “genius” of the NECC who thought it prudent that Basotho taxpayers should doll such a humungous amount of money to Xie to rent our government’s own property. For M53 000, the NECC could have rented an entire floor at the LNDC centre. But no. That would not have been good for Xie’s pockets.
So here is a man with the power to ban red meat imports into Lesotho, effectively hiking prices and profits for his own beef monopoly abattoir. Here is a man who has the power to let our government consign our wool and mohair farmers to a life of penury while reaping rewards for his fellow Chinese’s crooked wool centre.
Here is a man who essentially puts an elected prime minister in his back pocket. Xie makes Atul Gupta’s capture of Jacob Zuma and the South African state look like a Sunday afternoon picnic of mogodu and samp.
The sad thing is that in his native China, Xie would have been hanged for his corruption. But in Lesotho he is not only encouraged. He is mollycoddled. I for one don’t believe that Xie is in Australia as has been reported by media houses. He is right here trying to bait our new Prime Minister Majoro. Let’s hope he will not succeed with Ntate Majoro. In fact, he should not succeed and he won’t succeed.
And for those Basotho in J and M Properties and other shameless Basotho who have facilitated Xie’s looting, I repeat; shame on you. You are an embarrassment not only to this nation, but to humanity. What the hell do you think you are doing suing our government on behalf of a celebrated crook to claim M53 000 daily rentals from the Lesotho government for its own property.
You are an embarrassment. And when the time finally arrives for Xie to either be hanged or sent back to Huan, you should be hanged or deported with him. Once there, get your Chinese citizenship as Xie did here. Let’s see whether you will then be able to get away with the murder that you have facilitated for Xie here.
Ache!!!
