Walk the talk
By Editorial
The coalition government yesterday unveiled an ambitious policy document it says will underpin government operations for the next five years.
The policy document comes nine months after the formation of the coalition government led by Prime Minister Thomas Thabane last June.
The document says the government wants to transform and reconstruct Lesotho’s anaemic economy for the purposes of creating jobs and slashing poverty.
It will also seek to form a National Planning Board to aggressively drive key sectors such as tourism, hydropower generation, education and sports.
Belated as it is we think it is in order that we congratulate the government for putting together such a plan.
But that’s as far as it goes.
The biggest challenge for this coalition government, however, is to close the usually huge chasm that often exists between policy pronouncement and implementation.
We have no doubt there have been lots of ambitious policy documents that have been crafted by previous governments.
They have, like yesterday’s document, all been launched amid pomp and fanfare.
Our problem is that too often we have allowed such brilliant documents to gather dust in government offices.
Our biggest problem has always been in the implementation.
We are not surprised that such policy papers are often abandoned to gather dust somewhere in government offices.
This has been the major Achilles heel for the previous governments since the restoration of democracy in 1993.
The coalition government must therefore walk the talk in addressing the key challenges facing Basotho.
This government was elected into office amid much hope for change.
It must deliver.
Basotho are still waiting for real action that significantly transforms their lives for the better.
By all accounts they are not looking to be pampered.
They want enough to eat.
They want decent jobs.
They want an enabling business environment that allows them to stand on their own.
They want the government to tackle corruption and crime.
They want decent shelter, with all basic amenities.
We cannot understand, for instance, why some parts of the city still resemble medieval settlements with people being forced to go through the indignity of using pit latrines.
Hundreds of thousands in urban areas still do not have running water in their homes.
We believe this coalition government will be measured against how it deals with these challenges.
Basotho want to see their lives being transformed for the better after five years.
Anything short of that will be a huge indictment on this coalition government.
But time is certainly not on the government’s side.
In less than 50 months Basotho will once trek to the polls to elect a new government.
We might not have another coalition government again.
But for the individual parties they can only retain power if they perform well in improving the lives of the people.
Yesterday’s policy document was launched exactly nine months after the formation of the coalition government.
We are still curious to understand why there was this delay.
We need not remind the government that it needs to act with speed to improve the lives of Basotho.
Time is not on its side.
Comment by keizer on 7 March 2013:
policies can only start with Education Reforms and Commecial Agriculture. if there is no industrial education in this beautiful country what ever is implemented or planned is useless. Colonialism is still here within us Lesotho cannot be indipendent unless they implement “no freehand policy.”
Comment by Mkababa on 7 March 2013:
I hope and believe that the policy document crafted by the Coalition Government has drawn its objectives and plans from the National Strategic Development Plan, which contains strategic plans and actions that will be implemented by the Government over a five year period, that is, 2012/13 – 2016/17. If not, which I believe is not the case, we will have two policy documents developed by the same government with conflicting ideals/plans.
Comment by sandile on 7 March 2013:
Have we audited the skills that the government officials in each ministry have to implement the policy? After auditing such skills we will realise that we are far from implementing any sensible policy in this country. The government can’t keep a seasoned engineer to lead energy development sector nor a well trained geologist to strategise our mining sector. We don’t have (in government) people to rise to the challenge because the government dont want to pay them. The government is happy to loose these guys to South Africa.. We are loosing many of them.
Comment by Tlhase on 7 March 2013:
Noble intentions, but with salaries the Government is paying, they will not materialise and will be good plans on paper. The coalition needs skilled personnel and expertise. Do something about skills retention and you will address social ills and poverty. Who would stay to receive such a pittance as a salary! This is why the capital budget remains largely unspent at the end of the financial year, it means projects are not being implemented and results achieved. I understand the strategy of coalition is to use Consultants every step of the way, but it will not help if you have pockets excellence amid a sea of incompetence, dissatisfaction, de-motivation, despair. After all, who will maintain what the consultants do?
Comment by sandile on 7 March 2013:
@Thlase
Even a consultant can come and do susbstandard work if he is being appraised unskilled government official. Government official will not take to task a consultant on shaddy work if he doesnt have proper skills and qualifications. All these governments have not paid a single attention on how to retain skilled professionals for the benefit of this country..
Comment by Raseponti on 7 March 2013:
I cant agree more with the previous comments, good to have consultant working/helping Basotho to put together the action plan, implement, monitor and analyse. Bring knowledgeable people who are not looking for employment themselves, structure their packages around developing system and empowering locals to carry over when theri contracts expire, then maintain that line of communication for follow up/feedback sessions. At least let’s give it a try people, we can only start somewhere
Comment by Bobete on 7 March 2013:
@Tlhase, Sandile & Raseponti
Good comments guys, I totally agree with you. ‘Muso ha o nke malebela tabeng tsena hoba ha se kaofela re ka lulang tafoleng ho eletsa.
Comment by sandile on 7 March 2013:
@Raseponti, consultants should be allowed to do the job as you say. But we must have equally qualified (government) personnel safe guarding the interest of the government. e.g. if you contract a company to mine diamonds, lets have a well trained geoogist who will tell that a chosen kimberlite can yeild so much diamonds if explored at a certain rate. Then an investor (mostly foreigners) cannot come and tell us that he is mining a small basin a day while he is mining a bath tub full of diamonds, avoiding taxes and stealing from us. Lets have our own technicians (paid well so that they dont cross over to SA) to safe guard our interest and appraise consultants accordingly. We tried to do this with Masupha Sole (someone who is skilled and educated but unfortunately from the prison) in the water sector. Why can’t we do the same in many sectors? with freshly trained young basotho who SA is snatching in our face?
Comment by Lillo on 7 March 2013:
Basotho a step at a time. For a country that was near stationary for the past 10 years or so you are being awfuly eager to critisize. Am i saying be complacent? no. Just be optimistic. and if you are let down in under 50 months like they say elect the better atlernative.
Comment by Ketalautlesip on 10 April 2013:
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