It has been a while since I was last inspired to put pen to paper and share thoughts in a meaningfully constructed way. Sometimes the mind just goes into a sleep mode and refuses to cooperate, even when the will is there. Such is life. I remember back in the day when I used to harass Ntate Meshu at every opportunity that I wanted his famed moraba-raba painting and his standard response which did not sit well with me was that he was not inspired. How the tables have turned!
Today I want to write about a subject that I am usually passionate about, but of late the passion needs to be rekindled and reinvigorated. The subject is Lesotho, ‘hara mafatse ha le eo le tsoanang le lona’, a dream so near yet so far!
October 4th 1966 – Independence Day
Lesotho as we know attained her independence on 04 October 1966, 4 days after Botswana hoisted its new flag to mark her independence. Swaziland or eSwatini as it is now referred to was the third country which completed the tripartite commonly known as BOLESWA during my time when I was still growing up. eSwatini attained independence in September 1968.
Leading to the independence of Botswana and Lesotho in 1966, the British parliament debated at length the readiness of the two nations in Southern Africa with an admission by British legislators that Britain had not done justice to the two nations in so far as economic and infrastructure development. This was more so for Bechuanaland (Botswana) than for Lesotho as Bechuanaland was significantly lagging behind and in all aspects.
Fast forward to 2022, the only real commonality is that the two nations attained independence in October 1966, merely 4 days apart. In the last 56 years, Botswana has made giant strides economically and today it overshadows Lesotho in almost all respects including sport which historically Basotho were always superior. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita of Botswana is nearly 7 times that of Lesotho.
How Batswana planted seeds of a brighter future
The success story of Botswana can never be complete without the story of how Batswana funded the development of their own university, University of Botswana, with the contribution of a cow from each Motswana. Batswana like most other Southerners used to further their studies at University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland (UBLS) which was headquartered in Lesotho. The dream to have an own University was envisioned by Sir Seretse Khama, and the dream came to life in 1975/76 with the campaign code named ‘Motho le Motho Kgomo’ which translated ‘One man, one beast’ which galvanised the values of self reliance. Batswana heeded the clarion call and came forward to give their contributions, and the rest as they say is history.
To give context as to how much of a giant step this was, in 1966 at independence, Botswana only had;
- 12km of paved roads in the whole of Botswana
- Only 22 university graduates
- Only 100 people who fully completed Secondary schooling
This according to a research paper titled ‘An African success story – Botswana’ by Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (2001).
A vision without a sense of purpose and mobilisation is exactly that, a vision which is unlikely to be attained. A pipedream.
Today the University of Botswana is a well established University with a student population of 16,000, boasting a wide variety of faculties including a Schools of Medicine and a faculty of Engineering. Such are the strides that Botswana has made from the vision of Sir Seretse Khama in the mid- 70s.
Reflections from Lesotho Independence day 2021
Last year I followed a live stream event hosted by Tangerine, a local marketing/events company (I hope I am not misrepresenting them) and there were conversations about ‘Brand Lesotho: A catalyst for investment creativity and prosperity’.
One of the key speakers at the event was Thebe Ikalafeng, an eminent branding guru across the African continent who gave the audience a glimpse into how Lesotho is viewed by others, as well as showcasing what good and what excellent look like when countries position themselves correctly including ownership of intellectual properties belonging to that nation. He cited Kenya and its tourism industry and zoomed into the effort that went into securing the Intellectual Properties (IP) on the famed Masai people.
The Intellectual Property dimension was an interesting one and another panellist, Ntate Ralebitso who is also an accomplished marketer, and MD of Vodacom Lesotho, then asked why it is that the IP of the symbol of Basotho, the Seana-Marena, is not owned by Basotho, and neither was the manufacturing. At face value, this is a question that one can dismiss and say in business ‘you snooze, you loose’, the Italian family that owns Aranda has capitalised on the opportunity at hand and have done well for themselves and such is the nature of capitalism.
The question as to why Basotho do not even own the very symbol by which they are identified with globally is a very pertinent question. It should be a question that as Basotho we should ask ourselves what it is that we have done as a collective to advance the being of Basotho and to build lasting institutions which serve and advance our nationhood. What is our equivalent of the Batswana’s rallying call of ‘Motho le Motho Kgomo’?
I would like to argue that as a nation, we have never really done anything as a collective of Basotho for the advancement of Basotho. Although few and far apart, we have had pockets of excellence which unfortunately we have not been able to leverage and scale up.
Politics – the enemy of progress
I recall a time in the late nineties in the very early days of what eventually went on to become a flagship mining operation in Lesotho. It was shortly after the company had secured mining rights and signed an agreement with government, and as part of the initial phase we embarked on a process to register prospective employees (semi-skilled), especially those with prior mining experience.
One thing that stood out for me was that almost 1 in 3 registrants would amongst their credentials put forward their political party membership cards which naturally at the time would be membership cards of the then ruling party. The reaction from the registrants was always one of shock and surprise when we rejected the political membership cards.
Fast forward to 2022 where government is led by a coalition of at least five if not six political parties. This is the fourth coalition the last ten years, and the one consistent feature of the coalitions is that Ministries would be split in accordance with the coalition agreements, whereby every aspect of that Ministry would be politicised including parastatals and or private sector companies regulated by that particular Ministry. For example, the same flagship company I referenced, which is a private company, has had as many changes to the Board as there has been change of Ministers in the last ten years. An entity like LEC or LNDC, in the last ten years has had as many CEOs as there has been Ministerial changes, especially where Ministers come from different political parties. This revolving door has been nothing but a tragedy of catastrophic proportions, because there can never be sustainable progress when there is no stability nor clear policy. Success is a function of consistency.
Reading some of the books on political history of Lesotho, one quickly learns that this practice of using party membership cards to open doors for opportunities is not new. If anything it has been around from Day 1 in 1966.
At what point are Basotho going to say enough is enough? At what point are we going to make a realisation that it is not enough to vote and then expect miracles from a political messiah? At what point are we going to make a realisation that political promises have never turned around any country in the world?
Lessons learnt elsewhere globally
Ireland
Today Ireland is a key development partner to Lesotho and has been for a number of years now. In 1966 when Lesotho attained independence, Ireland was a poor country. Maybe not as poor as Lesotho, but poor nonetheless.
From the late 60s Ireland underwent accelerated industrialisation which was driven by rapid foreign investment after adoption of many friendly and open policies, including relaxation of foreign ownership, lower tax rates and a competitive labour market relative to its neighbours. One of the pillars of their success was the social pacts between government, investors and labour unions where there was a clear vision to position Ireland as an attractive market to specific industries such as IT, Pharmaceuticals and Health care and become a gateway into EU as such. Ireland also reaped a huge dividend from their earlier investment in education which was key in attracting the three sectors.
A key ingredient to turn around a country is unity of purpose. This unity needs to cut across the key stakeholder groups whose interests don’t always converge. In the case of Ireland, Labour Unions were persuaded to hold off their wage demands in the short term and to support long term plans of government to position Ireland as an attractive market boasting an educated but affordable labour pool.
Singapore
The story of Singapore can never be complete without the mention of Lee Kuan Yew who transformed Singapore from a tiny colonial outpost, to one of Asia’s wealthiest and least corrupt countries.
In his words, Mr Lee who became Singapore Prime Minister in 1959, said ‘to understand Singapore and why it is what it is, one needs to start off with the fact that it was not supposed to exist and could not exist.’ Mr Lee pointed out that Singapore did not have the ingredients of a nation which was namely; a homogenous population, common language, common culture and common destiny. Despite all of these, Mr Lee was able to steer the relatively small Asian nation to becoming one of the most important nations of the East with a formidable economy.
One of the ingredients of the Singapore success story, was having a functioning public service. The Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew made a realisation very early in his tenure as Prime Minister that to attract the best talent to Public Service, Singapore needed to pay competitive salaries to top public officials including Ministers, Judges and the technocrats in Government. This way, Public Officers would immediately be deterred from seeking kickback opportunities arising from their normal day to day functions. Government of Singapore ensured that top government officials were remunerated the same as their private sector counterparts.
Conclusion
Out of the 57 odd political parties, there seems to be one that has unsettled many political actors the most. The Revolution for Prosperity (RFP) or Moruo led by prominent business magnate and philanthropist, Mr Sam Matekane. Many are already hailing him as the Messiah or the modern day Moses who will rescue Lesotho from the unending downward spiral that has gripped the country since the dawn of coalition governments.
Those of us who keenly follow history remember that Ntate Mokhehle was equally hailed as the Messiah who was going to save Lesotho in 1993 and he won by a landslide sweeping all constituencies.
Years later, one of his proteges, Mr Tom Thabane, came to the scene and was also touted as the Messiah that Lesotho had been waiting for all these years. In his second election under the banner of All Basotho Convention, he managed to wrestle the premiership from Mr Mosisili who had been at the helm for nearly 15 years. Since 2012 when Mr Thabane first became the premier, Lesotho has had one of the most tumultuous periods since she attained her independence, characterised by instability, political assassinations, sheer lawlessness and institutionalised corruption.
The truth of the matter is that no single person can turn the fortunes of a country. As citizens of Lesotho, we need to get to a point where we say, enough of the missed opportunities. As a nation we commit and re-affirm our loyalty to the country first, and pledge support to the re-building the country.
We all need to drop the camaraderie of being comrades where loyalty is towards political parties first, but rather all become patriots. As patriots our mission should be about ensuring that every vacancy that arises, whether ministerial, PS, Ambassadorial, CEO of a parastatal, Board member to a company where Government is a shareholder, that we must all seek the very best among us to take that position. We need to ensure that senior government officials have the best Personal Assistants to revive professionalism within civil service. We need to stop parachuting people from boitsukuli to becoming heads of SOEs when they have not even managed one direct report let alone a department.
We also need to make a realisation that a Prime Minister on his/her own, cannot change the fortunes of a country. We all need to pull our weight –
- The person who put up the first road sign coming into Maseru from Maseru Bridge, needs to fix that ‘Kingsway Raod’. Kingsway is sufficient without a surname, let alone a misspelt one
- The person who controls volume on LTV needs to make way for somebody who can manage volume control. So is the person who is responsible for subtitles on LTV
- The people responsible for the maintenance and cleanliness of toilets at border and at airport, need to pull up their socks and become the best in their field.
We all need to adopt a new mindset as a people. A mindset of service above self, and a mindset of hunger for success in a global setting. It starts by seeing ourselves as agents of change beyond the election booth. It goes beyond recycling our wardrobes with the latest political colours.
For those who follow football, we have recently seen two of the most successful managers emerge once again victorious over their counterparts. Pep Guardiola with his Man City charges winning 4 out of the last 5 domestic EPL titles. We have just seen Carlo Ancelotti emerge as the only football manager to have won 5 of the top European domestic leagues – Italy, Germany, England, France and Spain. Amongst their very many ingredients for success, one of them is making sure they field the very best players at their disposal for every single encounter.
Their success, which we can learn from, can be attributed to their consistency in always seeking to have the very best and fielding the very best for the task at hand. The one thing that Lesotho has done and done in abundance is to train her citizens. The talent is there in almost all the disciplines. Let Lesotho like Josep Guardiola or Carlo Ancelotti field her top talent and let us see where that takes us.
Khotso! Pula! Nala!