masked men rule, or not

This morning I heard citizen reports on Harvest FM that some soldiers had been relieved of their weapons by some thugs driving a vehicle with US Embassy plates. The reports continued that the soldiers who are manning the roadblocks are abusive and have been assaulting people. Later in the day reports indicate that they have "abducted" for want of a better word, some people from Ha Leqele. According to reports the soldiers are masked. I didn't believe this until I saw it with my own eyes. The was a group of masked thugs just a few minutes ago in a government registered Toyota Hiace and a 4x4 probably a Nissan, also government registered, at the junction where Mpil0 meets Pioneer. So its true, the lawlessness has begun, all this in the name of the law.

six to six is good for something...

I spent this morning ruing the curtaillement of my freedom. And this evening having the most fun I have had in years! i just discovered You Tube. yes, I new about it. I didn't quite understand the point. Now I do, I found a video of Stan Getz and Trane playing Hackensack, and Trane playing "My Favourite Things". Rollins and Don Cherry playing "52nd Street Blues". Marsalis playing Haydn's Trumpet Concerto and "Cherokee" with the LCJO at Albert Hall. Classic! Altogether a fun Sunday evening. Thank you LCD.

and this too shall pass

A curfew was announced in the Maseru District on June 15th. It is effective immediately. Ostensibly, it has been announced in order to free the police to contain an armed criminal element that is distabilising the capital city (and district?).

The curfew will hit the low income group hardest, all street vendors will be significantly affected as thier right to free and thier customer's right to free movement is curtailled. The factories and anybody running plant that needs to work 24 hours will also be very hard hit, the transport industry either needs to obtain permits or re-arrange thier routes. Consider the case of a taxi driver who needs to start ferrying his passengers to work starting a 6:00am, when and how is he expected to get to work? How is he expected to get home after he has disembarked his last passengers at 6:00pm? Do we have the capacity to ferry everybody home and have the streets clear by 6:00pm? Would the objective still not be met if the restrictions we imposed from 5:00am to 8:00pm?

Why do we have roadblocks that are manned exclusively by very young and discourteous soldiers? While are male soldiers feeling up er- excuse me, searching women? What are the roadblocks intended to achieve? Do those who are manning them know what they are looking for? What will they do if they find it? Where do thier loyalities lie?

Is the curfew an effective remedy for the problems that have been identified? If it is, how will we know that it is effective? If its not, will our leadership be brave enough to admit that they were wrong? That they trampled over the rights of the many because of the ineptitude of the few?

Yes, this too shall pass, whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger. We shall overcome.

and a 100 days later....

Yes, its been 100 days! Exactly 107 since election day. Mosisili has had our mandate for a 100 days, what has he done with it?

I recall the following events from the last 100 days:

1. A limp budget speech
2. SADC report still unpublished
3. Mosisili's South African ID is now in the public domain
4. Heavy casualties in road incidents
5. MP's have started availing of themselves of the interest free loans
   
6. Children have died from expired food
7. Judges have also been "rewarded" with the M4000.00 Mercs.
8. A "motion of confidence" was tabled in parliament
   
9. Mystery fire at Qobosheaneng
10. ABC has not disintegrated. Instead it seems to still be growing.
    

Please add or subtract from my list...

They say "ha li fofe, ha ho tatoe, moruo o hole" since we no longer write Sesotho properly, I will leave the intepretation to you. I have never come across a more apt slogan. In a way it has characterized the last 100 days.

qhobosheaneng fire

I was woken up this morning by a call from a friend; his message "Qhobosheaneng is on fire. It is raging out of control, the fire brigade - if you can call them that, is unable to deal with it and our neighbours (South Africa) have been summoned to help."

Qhobosheaneng was indeed on fire, the fire brigade's ineptitude was apparent as usual. They are not equipped to deal with any fire on any floor above the second floor. The third floor was on fire. This was a repeat of the Lesotho Sun fire, a comedy of errors if only it was not so serious.

Government offices are very susceptible to fire:

• there is too much paper
• the fire door are proped open
• there is no policy on buying heaters - thus open flame heaters (gas) and bar heaters proliferate, these are known to be dangerous.
• the total load on any of the electrical sockets is not monitored
• there is no fire detection system -even where one was installed it has been switched of or has not be tested.
• there is no fire suppression system in most places.
• no building has a fire marshal and thus there have never been any fire drills
• staff have never received any fire training.
• etc.

The real question now is what has been lost? I am not talking about the furniture and fittings but rather about the information that was kept in those offices, paper, computer files etc., how much of it can we reconstruct? A what cost? Will we learn? What will we do different next time?

Why that wing? Why those offices? Why now?

are we ready to listen to the youth?

I am not quite sure what the definition of youth is, that is, I am trying to find a cut-off date, when does one stop being young? I know that I am not young anymore, I left varsity about 20 years back! When did I stop being young? Was it 4, 10 or 15 years later? What I do know is that then, like now, there did not seem to be any way for the youth to participate effectively in decisions that affected their future.

In my view, there are two parties to blame, the curriculum developers for not being sufficiently interested in civic education, and the youth for not realising that they are responsible for their own destiny. However, apportioning blame is not going to solve the problem. What is needed is a way to get the youth to participate or at the very minimum develop an avenue for making sure that their voice is heard. In my view there a many ways in which this can be achieved. I have provided examples below.

1. through political party youth wings
2. through youth business chambers or business groupings
3. college and universities alumni societies
4. church youth groups
5. professional societies

Each one of these has limitations as to its efficacy, the political party youth wings tend to polarise the youth and debate at this level turns into rhetoric and grandstanding. I am not aware of any youth business chambers, nor am I aware of any moves by the existing business chambers to try and get young business men and women to participate in their initiatives. The NUL alumni society which is expected to be the leading and most strategically important alumni society in Lesotho is dead. Church youth groups do not seem to want to address the role of the youth in society, they instead tend to focus on the family and the young people's relation with the church and ministry. There are very few professional societies in Lesotho, and those that are there are very docile.

I know that I have painted a bleak picture, however, I have also demonstrated how easy it would be create a credible society that had a strong youth component. If I were to start such a society I would aim for the resurrection of the NUL Alumni Society, it would allow the youth to participate effectively and would not necessarily disenfranchise me from participating, its a forum that can be easily transition to a trusted convener on any issue. It would allow the youth's voice to be heard and that voice would have the benefit of the counsel of age.

I would give up my anonymity in a flash to participate in the renaissance of the NUL Alumni Society. I am ready to listen and engage effectively, I am old enough to have made a few friends in the right places and have the clout required to kick a few doors. I can make noise, someone will listen. A former boss once said that in assessing any situation figure out whether you are in control or want to be, whether you can influence the outcome, whether you need to lend support or simply get out of the way. I don't want control I only wish to lend support where I can.

are we ready for democracy?

Matlosa and Shale of EISA state that:

"It should be emphasised that Lesotho’s politics tends to be marked by zero-sum nature of engagement of politicians across and within parties. This is explicable, in part, by reference to the country’s poor resource endowment. A small, landlocked and impoverished Lesotho has always been mired by conflict-ridden politics, in part, because the political elite perceive politics (through parties and the legislature) as a license to access state resources. Given bleak prospects for accumulation in the private sector, the state becomes a major avenue for accumulation and that explains why contestation for state power among the elite becomes so fierce and has generated protracted violent conflicts in the past. This helps us pose even a bigger or complex problem: what exactly are prospects for building and sustaining representative democracy in poor countries
without a sound economic base like Lesotho?"

On my first reading of this statement I was aghast, I know Matlosa! He is a son of the soil, we have shared lots of laughs, had a few beers, discussed serious issues, agreed and differed, how dare he? Who is he to assert that we are probably doomed to and endless zero-sum game?

In fairness, by the time I got to the part I have quoted I had already read and agreed with a large part of his analysis and had started reflecting on the discussion I had had with one of my very smart lawyer friends the previous evening. The purpose of my blog today is to provide examples that prove Matlosa and Shale's point while also highlighting some of the anomalies in my beloved mountain kingdom.

Sometime in the not too distant past parliament approved salary increases and benefits for parliamentarians, there was some disquiet about the revisions but the debate did not take on the intensity of the Merc issue. The salient points to recall from these are:

• MPs supposedly awarded themselves an 84% salary increase
• MPs supposedly also approved a scheme where each of them was entitled to an interest free loan of M500,000.00

My friend asserted that the parliamentarian's loan scheme costs us as taxpayers much more than the Mercedes Benz and Camry issue, and that we have kept quiet about it. I argued that we saw the Mercs and Camry everyday and that they always serve as a reminder that no matter how hard we work for equality it always seems to be elusive, that some appear to gain advantages that are not congruent with the amount of effort put in. He invited me to research for myself and see which was the worse evil, the Mercs and Camrys or the loan scheme.

My research has revealed the following:

• assuming 24 Merc E280 @ M445,000 are bought for cash we would spend M10,680,000.00
• if each of the Mercs was depreciated at 20% year, the car would have a value of M227,840.00 at the end of the three years.
  
• If these Mercs were then disposed as they were this year the lost to the taxpayer would be M227,480 * 24 = M5,468,160.00

I have been very simplistic in my assumption, I have assumed that the government would pay cash for the cars thus avoiding interest. I have completely factored out Imperial. I know that the govt. can get the Merc for much less money if they really tried. I have also figured the addition of about 40 Lexus is250s would not have a major impact on the above figures at worst they would merely double. The Lexi (is that what you call them when there's more than one?) would depreciate faster say 25%.

Now, lets analyse the loans, for simplicity I am going to assume that the Senator's are not entitled to the privileges that the parliamentarians enjoy. So my figures will be based on 120 MPs.

• if each MP were to avail themself of the interest free loan in the first three months of their appointment then we as tax payer would fork out M 500,000 * 120 = M60,000,000.00
• If was assume that the current rate of interest is 11% with a term of 5 years (expected stay in parliament) then the MP saves M152,272.69 in interest. The formula to calculate this is very simple in excel =(pmt(.11/12,60,500000) *60+500000),explanation offered on request.
• For 120 parliamentarians this figure is 152,272.69 * 120 = M18,272,723.06 this is already way over the cost of the Mercs.
• To make matters more interesting assume that each MP took the money and invested it on the stock market with a 10% annual return and did not touch the money for five years then you get the following picture:
• Value of investment end Year 1: M500,000*1.1 = M550,000.00
• End of Year 2 = M550,000*1.1 = M605,000.00
• By end Year 5 we have = M732,050* 1.1= M805,255.00
• At this juncture the member can repay the loan at one go a keep a profit of M805,255.00 - M500,000 = M305,255.00. Imagine if you were an MP for two consecutive terms!
  
• Now if all 120 MP were really smart they would then put their earnings together M305,255.00*120 = M36,630,600.00 and use this war chest to prosecute really heavy BEE deals in both Lesotho and South Africa. And they can claim, factually, never to have used public money!

Again I have been very simplistic in my assumptions, if you take a personal loan, then you pay interest with after tax earnings, that is, the cost of the loan to you is much higher than the assumptions made here. You would have to work much harder to repay the same loan, assuming the same period you would need M2,537.00 extra per month in after tax money!

If any of them are astute, which some are, what they will most likely do is use the loan to set-up businesses that will compete with us, the tax payers. They will use our taxes to ensure theirs and their kids advantage. If Lesotho were to put the M60,000,000.00 into Bedco so many lives could be changed, so many families impacted, so many more than 120.

So, if it were you, what would you do? Would you vote against the interest free loan? Would you strengthen Bedco, or would you feather your nest? Remember, you only live once!

Lest I forget the quotation above is from http://www.eisa.org.za/PDF/les2006floorcross.pdf