Some of the Nikuv directors who fled Lesotho in March after their offices were raided by the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Offences (DCEO) arrived back in the country on Monday to resume work.

The Lesotho Times understands that the agreement which the company signed with the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) and the DCEO means that neither it nor its directors will be charged in connection with the alleged corruption linked to the ID contract.

The plea bargain deal with Nikuv is a major boost to the corruption case the DPP is preparing to bring against former and current government officials who are alleged to have received bribes from the company.

A syndicate of senior officials in former Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili’s government is alleged to have arm-twisted Nikuv International Projects to bribe them before the contract could be signed.

So far the investigation has revealed that the syndicate forced the company to inflate the contract price and channel the proceeds to their pockets by laundering the money.

The initial tender was for Nikuv to supply e-passports only but the government changed its terms when the contract was just about to be signed.

Nikuv was told that they should also bill for the production of IDs as well as the registration of births, deaths and marriages.

Nikuv officials, according to a source close to the investigation, were told that unless they agreed to include those new components in the contract the government would look for another company.

Under pressure, Nikuv officials agreed to sign the amended contract.

But there was another condition which the syndicate included but had nothing to do with the contractual issues.

After Nikuv billed the government US$25.7 million (M231.3 million) for the total project the syndicate is said to have told the company to increase the price to US$29.1 million (M261.9 million).

This meant that the officials were instructing the company to overcharge the government by an extra US$3.4 million (M30 million).

That extra M30 million was going to be distributed to the syndicate through various money laundering schemes whose trail the DCEO is now following, according to sources.

The investigators want to know who benefited from that M30 million and Nikuv is likely to provide the answers.

The DCEO is being assisted by a forensic audit firm hired to recover information from the computers taken from the company during a raid at its office in March.

As state witnesses, Nikuv directors will be expected to corroborate that information.

In exchange for agreeing to become state witnesses the company and its directors have been guaranteed immunity provided they give truthful information.

Sources close to the matter told the Lesotho Times that Nikuv signed the plea agreement with the DPP and the DCEO last week after weeks of negotiations.

The DCEO is understood to have started interrogating some of the Nikuv officials.

Although the names of the officials being investigated are yet to be made public there are indications that Principal Secretary of the Finance Ministry, Mosito Khethisa is a person of interest to the investigators.

The anti-corruption unit raided the home and offices of Khethisa in March.

Retšelisitsoe Khetsi, the former principal secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs who signed the multi-million maloti contract with the Israeli company two months before it was approved by cabinet, is also under investigation.

His home was raided in March as well.

Sources have however told this paper a number of ministers in the former government are also suspected to have benefited from the corrupt deal.

“This matter is bigger than Khethisa and Khetsi,” said the source.

“What has been gathered so far points to an elaborate scheme to swindle the government and there are some big names involved. There will be arrests that will shake this country” he added.

Another source said during the negotiations with the DPP and DCEO Nikuv officials insisted that the process to award the tender was transparent but the problem came when it was time to negotiate the contract.

Since the contract was awarded the government has paid M140 million to the company.

The company has built an e-passport facility in Mohale, facilities in the 10 districts and provided the computer hardware for the project.

The company has also supplied the software required to run the system and was now training some local officers.

“The story is not totally true and I think the author should have contacted me for more information before publishing the story because it does not give readers the true picture of what happened in Moyeni,” he said.

He said it is true that he was sent to Moyeni on May 9 to establish the veracity of letters sent to the party’s national executive committee where he met the constituency committee including the chairman.

“The constituency committee was clear that the letter sent to the secretary general expressing lack of confidence in the National Executive Committee was never their decision, (but was) rather a decision of the constituency chairman and youth league chairperson,” he said.

“Only two members out of about 14 members of the committee wrote that letter without informing the rest of the constituency committee members about it.”

He said the other members “were informed about this days after the letter had been sent by these two members”.

“The constituency committee went further and wrote another letter withdrawing the letter which had been written by the two members.”

That political solution, according to several people privy to the issue, involved the government giving the Israeli company total immunity.

That meant that even if investigators found any incriminating evidence against Nikuv and its directors no charges were going to be brought against them.

This was the initial proposal that Nikuv’s lawyers brought to the table when they met the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Offences (DCEO) and Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) officials soon after the company’s officials were raided and its directors interrogated.

“Initially Nikuv wanted nothing to do with the investigation,” said a source close to the issue.

“They said the government must just find a political solution to the problem and they already had documents which they said the government must sign to give the company immunity.”

The DPP and DCEO however pushed for a legal solution which was based on a plea bargain under which the company would agree to become state witnesses.

That meant that if the Nikuv officials  were  not truthful  in their testimonies they would be liable for prosecution.

Thetsane was already the DPP when Lahmeyer International, a German consulting firm, faced prosecution for allegedly bribing two senior Lesotho Highlands Water Commission (LHWC) officials to win a tender during the construction of Katse and Mohale dams.

Lahmeyer reached a plea bargain agreement with the prosecution to testify against Reatile Mochebelele who was the chief delegate and his deputy Letlafuoa Molapo on the LHWC, a joint Lesotho and South Africa oversight body in the water project.

In exchange for its cooperation Lahmeyer got off with a lighter sentence in the form of a fine.

But it was the evidence from the company that assisted the prosecution to get a conviction against Mochebelele and Molapo.

Thetsane’s star witness was Lahmeyer’s chief resident engineer Raymond Stock.

Stock testified that 90 percent of management meetings were held in Mochebelele’s office and before many of them he would arrange monies to pay Mochebelele.

These meetings seemed to have been informal because Stock testified that there would be a general chit-chat and talk about problems that might have happened in the previous one.

Stock would be given a nod and he would know that it was time to leave and he would hang around in the reception area while some business that was obviously not for his ears was being discussed.

He said he had no doubt what was being discussed was the issue of “commission” although under cross-examination he admitted that it was a bribe.

Stock knew of the “commissions” that exchanged hands during these meetings, which ranged from M20 000 to M350 000.

He testified that he would always be instructed beforehand by the Lahmeyer head office in Germany to withdraw money from the company’s account in Maseru ahead of the arrival of its senior official, one Dr Zimmerman.

He would then instruct a member of staff to collect the money from the bank and hand it over to Zimmerman before attending these meetings at Mochebelele’s office.

Stock had recorded his activities in his diaries and he did so with great detail regarding the payments.

Mochebelele and his co-accused, Molapo, who is already serving jail time at the Maseru Central Prison, were found guilty of accepting more than M1.8 million in bribes from the German engineering company Lahmeyer.

Mochebelele is currently in South Africa opposing extradition after he skipped the country following his conviction by the High Court.

The constables who have been left out of the current salary restructuring exercise are now accusing the government of discrimination.

The Ministry Public Service announced in March that civil servants’ salaries would be reviewed with effect from April 1.

The review was however extended to this month after the government failed to meet the April 1 deadline.

Later a written document from the Ministry of Public Service principal secretary to that of the Ministry of Finance said police constables would only get the six percent salary hike.

“Your good office is kindly informed that the rank of Police Constable in the Lesotho Mounted Police Service has been adjusted by six percent while other ranks have been reviewed,” said the document dated March 22.

“Please note that officers in the Police Constable rank should maintain their current points while officers in the other ranks are to start at first point of their respective ranks.”

Some said they were shocked on Monday when they realised that their salaries were not reviewed.

They said they only received the six percent annual salary increment that was announced during the budget.

The acting secretary general of the Lesotho Police Staff Association, Teboho Molumo, said only police constables who have graduated from tertiary institutions have had their salaries reviewed.

Molumo, who was one of the police constables whose salaries were reviewed, said the association has received complaints from its members that their salaries were the same as last month.

“It is true that salaries for police constables who are not graduates were not reviewed. We have papers to prove it,” Molumo said.

“The only adjustment on their salaries is the annual six percent that government gave to all civil servants.”

“Police constables make most of the association membership. They are really not happy with the arrangement”.

Molumo said the junior police officers felt it was not fair that everyone got the reviewed salaries they expected except them.

He however said that the association was in the process of negotiating better salaries for police constables.

“We are in talks with the principal secretary in the Ministry of Public Service. The matter has not been resolved yet but we are hoping for a favourable outcome,” he said.

Police constables who spoke to this paper on condition of anonymity said they were angered by the segregation.

One constable whose salary was not reviewed said he felt the government was discriminating against them.

He said they were offended by the little regard they get from authorities when they work under difficult circumstances to fight crime.

“We work under risky situations without necessary resources and this is the thank you we get from our government and senior officials,” he said.

“We are the ones doing the dirty work and the top guys who enjoy the comfort of their offices get the rewards.”

Another police officer told this paper that they would embark on a go-slow if the government does not review their salaries.

On Tuesday afternoon there were reports of a go-slow in Leribe where police officers had mounted a road block.

The same reports were heard from Mafeteng yesterday.

Police spokesperson senior inspector Masupha Masupha said on a local radio station that some police officers were not happy with the scale that was used to review their salaries.

Masupha said the authorities were still addressing the complaints.

A police constable without a tertiary certificate but has served for 10 and more years earns a gross salary of M5 635.

At entry a police constable gets a gross salary of M4 858.

High ranking police officers get up to M12 119.

E careful what you wish for, so goes the English saying.

After too many deaths in a village a celebrated village blabbermouth calls on the chief to hire a ngaka to catch the witch.

The ngaka comes, throws his bones and names the blabbermouth’s mother as the village witch.

Be careful what you wish for.

This is not a story about witches and sangomas but wishes that were granted with ruinous results.

It is a story about the Court of Appeal President Justice Michael Ramodibedi who wished for political intervention in the judiciary and pushed for it.

But when the politicians found him to be part of the problem he cried foul.

Basotho are generally a sensitive and sympathetic people.

There is enough empathy for everyone in this country. But for some reason Justice Ramodibedi has found very little sympathy after Uncle Tom asked him to pack his bags and go.

The judge is now seeking redress in the Constitutional Court.

How that case might turn out is a story for another day.

What is clear now is that the judge finds himself in this quagmire because of his own actions.

any will remember that not so long ago Justice Ramodibedi was calling on Uncle Tom to intervene in his dispute with Justice Mahapela Lehohla, the soon to be former chief justice of this country.

Indeed, Justice Ramodibedi once whispered into Uncle Tom’s ear that Justice Lehohla was a problem judge who should be impeached.

He has been on that crusade since the government of Pakalitha Mosisili.

As early as January the judge of many countries called on Uncle Tom to clip Justice Lehohla’s wings after he allegedly sabotaged the Court of Appeal’s session for January.

As events over the past four months have shown, Uncle Tom has granted Justice Ramodibedi his wish.

Justice Lehohla has been sent home to “bloomer” in the sun with grandchildren and catch up with his brother Lesao who was evicted from power last May.

But Uncle Tom has done more than just grant Justice Ramodibedi’s wish.

He has told the judge that he too must leave Lesotho’s judiciary to concentrate on being Mswati’s man in Swaziland. Boom! Oh, Boooooom!

The boomerang that Justice Ramodibedi threw at Justice Lehohla hit the target before spinning back to the one who dispatched to him.

The judge’s nose is blooded. Yet apart from a bunch of so-called senior lawyers, a group of bootlickers in the legal fraternity and perhaps some blood relatives no one else seems to care that the judge is reeling in pain.

There is a general agreement that this is his baby to kiss. Moaa! Moaa! Kiss it judge, just kiss it.

ustice Ramodibedi is not a victim of circumstances as he might want us to believe.

He has been hoist by his own petard.

In his haste to push Justice Lehohla out he forgot to cover his own backside.

Uncle Tom is doing precisely what Justice Ramodibedi clamoured for: getting rid of problems in the judiciary.

The only trouble here is that Uncle Tom sees two problems and not one.

A senior judge himself, Justice Ramodibedi must have had the wisdom to know that Uncle Tom has his own brains and ideas.

By accusing Uncle Tom of interfering with the judiciary Justice Ramodibedi is exercising selective amnesia of sorts.

He is conveniently forgetting that it was he who invited the political hand into the judiciary.

Now that the political hand is slapping him and shoving him out of the wooden doors at the Palace of Justice the judge sees an injustice.

hat goes around comes around, the English say. That saying provides lesson number two for Justice Ramodibedi.

Many will recall that in Swaziland, where Justice Ramodibedi is the chief justice a judge was thrown under a train over some trumped-up charges.

Even when the world condemned that move he was hauled over the coals.

Justice Masuku was kicked out of the Swazi High Court bench under circumstances that caused many people to frown with contempt.

Justice Ramodibedi is now about to be thrown under a bus just like what happened to Justice Masuku.

Selective amnesia has set in again and Justice Ramodibedi is now accusing the government of victimising him.

Has he forgotten so fast what happened to another judge in another country whose judiciary he heads?

erhaps we might give him the benefit of doubt on that one because he is a chief justice in a country run by an absolute monarchy.

But how does he explain his deafening silence when Uncle Tom asked Justice Lehohla to resign?

Was that interference justified because it was targeted at his nemesis?

It’s telling that since Justice Lehohla was asked to step down Justice Ramodibedi has not raised a finger to point out the dangers associated with the executive asking a senior judge to go.

It is clear that when Uncle Tom asked Justice Lehohla to hit the road Justice Ramodibedi thought it was all good.

Now that it is his turn to face the wrath of a meddling executive he suddenly remembers the principal of separation of powers and the importance of an independent judiciary.

ever be contemptuous of other people. That’s not an adage but still a third lesson for Justice Ramodibedi.

You see, in all the time he has been president of the Court of Appeal Justice Ramodibedi has never recommended the appointment of a local judge to his court. His court is staffed with foreign judges who are all white.

That’s not a racist statement but a fact.

It tells you something about him.

Its either he feels important when he is surrounded by white judges or he just does not believe that there is any person in this country who can make the grade in a court he runs.

Scrutator senses that he is just contemptuous of the local legal minds.

Otherwise how else do we explain the appointment of a judge whose speciality is maritime law in a landlocked country like Lesotho? Phew!

Isn’t it ironic that the constitutional case he has brought against the government will likely be handled by three very black and very local judges?

Those judges are likely to come from the High Court, the very court from which he has been cherry picking judges to sit as ex-officio members of his court.

Local is lekker!

erhaps one of the crucial lessons we have learnt from this saga over the past two months is that people in this country are owned by people.

Clientelism is the word for a social order that depends upon relations of patronage; in particular, a political approach that emphasizes or exploits such relations.

It might not precisely capture what has been happening in the judiciary over the past five months but in the absence of a more apt word it does the job fairly well.

People belong to people in the judiciary. That loyalty to people blinds people to the real issues.

In their bid to defend their “owners” the followers normally become hypocritical. Take for instance the brouhaha that some senior lawyers have caused over Uncle Tom’s request that Justice Ramodibedi should resign.

Barely weeks after Uncle Tom’s meeting with Justice Ramodibedi a group of the so-called senior lawyers started rallying behind the judge.

It’s unconstitutional, they said.

Uncle Tom is tampering with the independence of the judiciary, they cried.

They were right on both points.

The problem is that they do protest too much and selectively so.

When Justice Lehohla was asked to go the so-called senior lawyers kept their usually busy mouths zipped.

This was despite that it was wrong for Uncle Tom to ask a chief justice to leave. But when Justice Ramodibedi was asked to follow Justice Lehohla to the door the same group suddenly found its voice.

To understand why they suddenly found their voices you have to go back in time.

Many will recall that it was the same group of lawyers who actively pushed for Justice Ramodibedi’s appointment as a judge.

They are the same group that sat as prosecutors and judges to decide to put the mess in the judiciary on Justice Lehohla’s door.

They even tried to nudge Uncle Tom to push the chief justice out.

The reason for that biased assessment of the problem was precisely because lawyers in this country are owned.

They are all the judge’s men. They love him and they aspire to be him.

Ops, did I say that? I lied. I meant to say they are bootlickers.

In asking both Justice Ramodibedi and Justice Lehohla to leave Uncle Tom has gone against the Constitution and interfered with the judiciary.

The lawyers should have seen it as such in both cases.

But this is Lesotho where people are owned by people. Dear readers, you are welcome to puke with disgust at such tomfoolery and double standards if you wish.

n saying all this Scrutator has not forgotten that Uncle Tom committed a fundamental error when he asked the judges to leave.

It was not his place. That has never been the way to remove judges.

Uncle Tom’s salvation in Justice Lehohla’s case is that the judge agreed to go.

But now he has one big fight with Justice Ramodibedi who is clearly ready to take the battle to the bitter end.

Justice Ramodibedi might actually win his case and Uncle Tom will have egg on his face.

Uncle Tom put the cart before the horse.

Now that he has made his intentions clear he has squandered an opportunity to remove the judge through constitutional means. They say haste makes waste.

Uncle Tom might be stuck with Justice Ramodibedi for much longer than he wanted. And, who knows, Justice Ramodibedi might just outlast him.

Scrutator is rubbing her hands with glee for the fodder that the fight is likely to provide for her pieces.

Ache!

scrutator29@gmail.com

You could see that the police authorities were rattled from the haste with which police spokesperson, Masupha Masupha, moved to dismiss the allegation.

Masupha and his superiors know that a go-slow by any section of the police will be a blow to their fight against crime.

The speculation might have been just gossip but what is clear is that the constables are unhappy.

It would seem that the government’s decision is based on the fact that the constables don’t have any qualifications apart from the basic police training they got from the Police Training College.

We understand that the logic here is to reward education and we have no qualms with that.

What we doubt is whether it will help the government’s fight against crime.

The constables are the foot soldiers of the police force.

It is they who patrol the streets and villages to fight and prevent crime. They are the ones who deal with the people.

In other words, they are the face of the Lesotho Mounted Police Service. It is therefore important that they too be motivated even if they have basic police training as their only qualification.

We are not saying they must be rewarded at the same level as those with tertiary qualifications.

The point we are making here is that it is counterproductive to deny them increments altogether in a review that benefits almost every civil servant.

It gives the impression that they are lesser police officers than their educated counterparts.

There is no organisation that can operate optimally when its junior officers are disgruntled.

As a newspaper we have always advocated better salaries for the police. The government too has in the past admitted that the working conditions and salaries of police officers have to be improved.

The decision to deny the constable a salary review runs parallel to those earlier pronouncements.

If the government wants to win the war on crime then it must reconsider its decision.

There is a real danger in turning a blind eye to the concerns of the police constables.

If the constables feel the government does not want to address their problem they might use other means to improve their earnings.

One of those methods is corruption, something that the police force has been trying to root out for years with little success.

There is already a perception that our police force is corrupt.

If the government excludes them from a general salary review on the basis of their lack of education there is a danger that corruption will get worse in the police force.

The disgruntled constables can turn to crime to supplement their measly earnings.

They might also just stop performing to the best of their abilities.

So in its plan to make a distinction between the earnings of “educated” and “uneducated” police constables the government might be scoring an own goal.

The constables have not said they want to earn the same salaries as their colleagues who have tertiary qualifications.

Rather, they are saying they should not have been excluded from the review.

We believe the government can make a compromise in that regard.

We must also point out that while we appreciate the government’s move to review salaries in the police force we believe that it must do more.

Reviewing salaries for police officers will improve their lot but it will not enhance efficiency until the government provides them with adequate resources.

The police need more cars, radios and computers.

More police stations have to be constructed and those that are already there need to be refurbished.

In a report tabled in Parliament on Monday, the committee said schools, parents and students wanted the fees maintained at current levels to ensure schools do not encounter problems such as loss of academic and non-academic staff, lack of basic materials for the day-to-day running of schools as well as the suspension of the schools’ feeding programmes.

“The current school fees in secondary and high school should be maintained. But government must continue regulating fees to mitigate the problem of excessive fees charged by other schools,” the committee says.

“However, government must consult with all relevant stakeholders within the education sector.”

The committee was made up of among others the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD)’s Ts’oanelo Ramakeoana, its chairperson and members Liteboho Kompi (LCD), Ts’epo Monethi (BNP), ‘Mamothibe Chaule (ABC), Tlohang Sekhamane (DC), Kotiti Liholo (DC) and Nthekeleng Mofolo (NIP).

Early last year, former Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili’s government slashed fees in a bid to standardise them, a move that was swiftly reversed in August last year after Mosisili lost power to incumbent Prime Minister Thomas Thabane’s coalition government.

The move to increase fees triggered howls of protest from the public and led to the social cluster portfolio committee being tasked in November to sample 40 schools nationwide to chart the way forward.

“The Ministry of Education could not ignore schools when they made the clarion call to government to revise the new fees structure claiming that it was rendering them dysfunctional and paralysing schools’ operations,” the committee says.

“Schools were experiencing different situations some of which affected the quality of education as well as access to education, claiming they had to cut school hours since they could not keep schools running throughout the calendar year due to limited finances.”

The committee adds that the education ministry also told the committee that some schools wrote letters complaining that they could not afford to “pay their private teachers and non-teaching staff hence they had to lay them off”.

All the relevant constituencies in the education sector including teachers’ trade unions, NGOs, international organisations, schools’ secretariat as well as trade unions for higher learning institutions were also engaged.

This was done by the committee splitting itself into two sub-committees, A and B, to conduct consultative meetings in the southern and northern districts of the country, while the central region was bilaterally covered by the two sub-committees, each consulting its own group of schools.

Separate questionnaires were prepared for the stakeholders, with school principals, boards and teachers responding to one while parents and students also had their own.

After interviewing students, the committee said it established that almost all of them affirmed that owing to the decrease in school fees their schools lost some academic and non-academic staff “while some experienced the suspension of feeding programmes”.

“In schools where feeding continued, students were fed non-nutritional foods. Students believed that all these factors eventually led to the shortage of school materials like desks and chairs as maintenance staff was among those who had to leave,” the committee says.

“Moreover, students said they experienced lack of laboratory material to run experiments, lack of stationery for writing tests, suspension of subject clubs membership like Mathematics, Science and English.”

However, the report adds, students reported that when fees were reduced in January 2012 “their parents were able to pay fees on time and meet their daily needs”.

“Thus the majority of them felt it will be benefitting if school fees could be reduced. A smaller group was saying fees should remain where they are while the smallest group felt a little increase would not hurt but will be beneficial to themselves and their school,” the report says.

The committee says of utmost importance to students seemed to be the building of classes to address the challenge of teacher-pupil ratio at their schools, building of laboratories where there were none, laboratory materials to enable the carrying out of experiments and building of libraries where there were none.

“They also want the installation of electricity where it is not available as well as the internet in order to do research and materials for practical subjects.”

However, the committee adds that owing to the hiked fees, teachers also complained of students dropping out of school due to the non-payment of fees.

“Teachers and principals reckon it is the responsibility of government to cater for the education of a Mosotho child,” the committee says.

Although most teachers preferred the status quo, the committee says there were a few who want fees to be reduced “and very few who want fees to be increased”.

On parents, the committee established that the majority of parents responded that school fees must remain where they are presently “in order to enable schools to be better placed to offer quality education to their children”.

“There were two small groups who felt school fees must be removed and another which felt that at least it must be reduced, and the last smaller group saying fees must be increased,” the committee says.

The committee’s conclusion, the reports says, is that all stakeholders believe government has to provide the panacea for all ills in the education sector, build more classes to address teacher-student ratio and subsidise school fees to ensure that “no child stays out of school because parents or guardians cannot afford to pay”.

The committee therefore recommends that government should be seen to be working towards progressive free secondary school education as provided by the constitution “towards achieving the objectives of the MDG 3 on universal education, Vision 2020 and Article 28 (c) of the convention on the rights of the child”.

Zaly will resume her duties at the ministry today after Justice Lisebo Chaka-Makhooane granted her an interim order setting aside her suspension.

Zaly’s lawyer Advocate Zwelakhe Mda filed an urgent application on Monday challenging the suspension which he argued was irregular and had impaired her dignity.

He said the suspension was unfair because she was not given an opportunity to be heard before it was effected.

Mda pointed out that the suspension letter that the government secretary Motlatsi Ramafole wrote to Zaly on April 22 did not specify the charges she was facing or indicate the duration of her suspension.

On Tuesday Advocate Makhele Sekati who was representing the government argued that there was no basis for Zaly’s case to be heard on an urgent basis.

He said this was because Zaly was only approaching the court a month after she was suspended.

Zaly’s application, he said, should not be allowed to be heard ahead of other cases in the High Court.

He said it was unfair for Zaly to wait for a month to make an application and then give the government less than a day to respond to her application.

He also argued that the court should not entertain her application because she is seeking redress against a suspension, a decision he said was final.

Mda however responded that Sekati was arguing on the basis of technicalities when the matter at hand was about a basic right.

He said the person who decided to suspend Zaly had not “applied his mind”.

The whole decision to suspend Zaly was irrational, he said.

Justice Chaka-Makhooane ordered that Zaly be reinstated pending the finalisation of the court case.

The government is yet to file its opposing papers.

Zaly confirmed that she had a court order instructing the ministry to reinstate her.

“There is a court order and I will be back in the office tomorrow (today),” she said.

In his letter Ramafole had said Zaly was being suspended because of “complaints of misconduct” against her from the “ministry’s authorities”.

Communications Minister Tšeliso Mokhosi said he had no choice but to suspend Zaly for defying his orders.

At that time there was speculation Zaly had fallen out with Mokhosi over the Digital Migration Project of the Lesotho Television.

The tender was won early last year by Rohde & Scharz, a Germany company, which billed the government M106 million, according to highly confidential documents seen by this paper.

It is understood that although the tender was procedurally awarded Mokhosi wanted to delay its implementation until the government had a policy and has established a Digitalisation Migration Unit to oversee the project.

The minister is also said to have accused Zaly of deploying staff without consulting him and approving a ministry employ’s application to attend a course at a school he claimed was bogus.

The Sunday Express has however established that the college does exist.

Main opposition Democratic Congress (DC) deputy leader Monyane Moleleki, deputy secretary general Semano Sekatle and Popane Lebesa attacked Phoofolo accusing him of defending the non-registration of voters when the law requires that “there be continuous registration of voters after every general election”.

The clashes happened during parliament’s routine question and answer session.

Phoofolo had responded to a question by the DC’s MP for Thaba-Phechela constituency, Molahlehi Malefane, who asked if the minister was aware that the IEC was currently not registering voters and how soon the IEC would resume the exercise.

Phoofolo said in the run-up to the 2011 local government elections, the electoral body had engaged the services of a consultant named R W Johnson “to assess the state of the voters’ roll”.

“His findings were that there was an imperfection of the system on reporting deaths which probably resulted in too many voters on the voters’ roll, some whom might have even be dead,” Phoofolo said.

“In spite of these weaknesses he indicated that the voters’ roll was still credible to be used in the Local Government Elections.”

Phoofolo said the report by Johnson informed the IEC that there was “a need to overhaul the database”.

“The same database is relevant for both the Local Government and the National Assembly Elections,” Phoofolo said.

According to Phoofolo, in a meeting of political party leaders and IEC held on July 20, 2011, “leaders expressed concerns with regard to poor registration and poor database”.

Subsequently, the minister told parliament, Johnson’s, IEC and Political Party Leaders’ observations meant “the re-registration was paramount”.

“This is because the fingerprints which were captured from 2001 to 2005 were of a poor quality whereby they could not be verified by the application of AFIS (Automatic Finger Identification Systems), a system used to remove multiple registrations,” Phoofolo said.

“This means that the IEC could not proceed with continuous registration while planning for re-registration of electors”.

Phoofolo added that in the 2013/14 financial year the IEC would embark on a strategy of “intensified continuous registration”.

“The registration will predominantly target constituencies and community councils which had reported vacancies. I thank you,” Phoofolo said.

In his response, Sekatle said the main issue was why the law was not being applied when decisions were made.

“There needs to be an amendment of the law so that the voters’ roll can be overhauled, not for power to be abused by suspending registration and sidestepping the law,” Sekatle said.

“Is it acceptable to just suspend registration without following the law? That’s where the issue is.”

However, Phoofolo was adamant that no law had been broken.

He said: “The law has not been broken. You really say a decision has been made regarding the suspension of registration. Registration will still continue. It will not stop. As soon as the 2013/14 funds are availed registration will continue.”

But Sekatle stood up again with a point of order, telling Phoofolo that it was inappropriate for him to say that no law had been broken.

“This country’s constitution as well the electoral law specify that registration would be continuous. Based on the 2012 elections, registration should have resumed as per the law,” Sekatle said.

“But now it is wrong for the minister to say no law has been broken when there’s no registration taking place as is required by the law. I am shocked by the minister’s (statement).”

At this point National Assembly Deputy Speaker Lekhetho Rakuoane interjected, telling Sekatle that it did not sound as though Phoofolo was denying issues raised by the DC because “the minister says they will continue but that they are waiting for funds”.

“He is saying: we are going to proceed to register,” Rakuoane said.

But Moleleki, who is also official leader of the opposition in parliament, was not satisfied and told Phoofolo he was taking the blame for non-registration upon his shoulders “when the IEC should shoulder the blame”.

“It’s being said that the IEC has erred by not resuming with voter registration. Does the minister realise that by telling this House that no law has been broken, he is actually taking the blame for the IEC?” Moleleki asked.

“The IEC cannot answer for itself now so I am speaking on the commission’s behalf,” Phoofolo said.

But Lebesa asked: “Is the minister aware that voter registration in this country is governed by law, it does not just happen willy-nilly and therefore it cannot just be stopped willy-nilly?”

“When was the government planning to inform the public about when registration would resume? When will the public be engaged?”

Phoofolo then said he believed he had told the House that he had not said that registration was not subject to the law or that there was no law guiding the process.

Phoofolo added that “there exists a law governing registration” and that the same law required that the process be continuous.

“We have indicated that we encountered problems that led to the delay of continuous registration, one of which is the financial issue,” Phoofolo said.

“It’s nothing new that some things have to be delayed because the required funds were not released on time,” he said.

On the question of when government intended to update the public on the status quo, Phoofolo said there was nowhere in the law where it was stipulated that it was mandatory “to inform the public when there’s no registration”.

“Not informing the public is not etiquette; it’s supposed to be done. We wish to apologise. If it has not been done, soon it will happen,” Phoofolo said.