Prime Minister of Lesotho Phakalitha Mosisili, Tuynhuys, Cape Town
19 June 2007
President Thabo Mbeki:
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen of the press
Welcome Prime Minister. We are very glad indeed that you have honoured us
with your visit. This visit is long outstanding and I am very glad indeed that
you are here.
The Prime Minister is here to have a look at the status of the bilateral
relations between Lesotho and South Africa with a particular focus on what we
need to be doing that will be of mutual benefit to both countries. One of the
issues in this regard will be the facilitation of free movement between the
people of both countries. There is great movement between the peoples of both
countries on a daily basis and we need to ensure there are no obstacles in this
regard. I am saying that this is the kind of framework in which we are
operating so we have indeed agreed about a number of priorities on which we
will focus for instance the matter of tourism which is important and therefore
work has begun to improve the road across the Drakensberg/Maluti Mountain that
links Lesotho to Durban and also impacts on the Maluti/Drakensberg
Transfrontier Park. This is part of the infrastructure on issues that relate to
tourism.
I must say that I found the discussion on what Lesotho will do to attract
the support of the 2010 Soccer World Cup very interesting in that Lesotho is
proposing that the training camp be set up in Lesotho. I am saying that the
visit was intended to look at all these matters on how we can improve our
working together on addressing the tourism challenge and what we do about these
issues that relate to the movement of people.
Indeed a major point in our relations is our heavy dependence on Lesotho for
our water and how we can co-operate on this matter.
We have had a wide range of discussions and I am quite sure Prime Minister
that we can now speed up the implementation on these issues.
But Prime Minister a very warm welcome.
Prime Minister Mosisili:
Thank you very much Mr President. It is an honour and one that I hesitate to
describe as rare since it indicates this is a singular opportunity when indeed
this is how we envisage our relations to ideally look, such regular
consultations. It is very important for us to be here. I would also like to
indicate how pleased we are that these memorandums of understanding (MoU) have
been signed.
These MoU go towards the integration of our programmes because like it was
so aptly described by Foreign Minister Dlamini Zuma this morning, not only is
Lesotho landlocked but it is South Africa bound. It makes a lot of sense for us
to do things together.
We from Lesotho are very proud of the achievements that South Africa is
making under your visionary leadership, Mr President. We wish to take a leaf
from your book.
When I was a young man growing up and our political leaders were struggling
against the British they had an expression, 'it is better to misgovern
ourselves than to be governed well by others.' That was true then but it cannot
be good for us today. We have to govern ourselves well. Part of the reason for
these consultations and MoU is that they epitomise transparent clearly
articulated programmes of operation, indeed programmes of good governance; you
will recall Mr President and members of the media that the flagship of
Lesotho-South Africa relations is the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. One of
its unique characteristics has been zero tolerance of corruption and by jointly
working together, that is a bilateral project that we jointly own, we have not
hesitated to say that no one is above the law. If it was said that our
officials were corrupt we responded by saying it takes two to tango. For there
to be corruption and for someone to be corrupted there had to be someone doing
the corrupting that is to say there had to be a corrupter and corruptee. Indeed
joint programmes need to be characterised by good governance and clean
practices. For this to happen there has to be very close design and
implementation in many of the programmes.
Mr President, because of this, we greatly appreciate the assistance rendered
to Lesotho over the years in our democratisation processes. We have recently
held general elections and there again, your assistance by way of providing
helicopters to ferry election material before the elections into the remote and
hard to reach areas and then to ferry them back to the headquarters of the
constituencies was invaluable, that is to say that I cannot attach a value to
it not that it was valueless just in case there are misunderstandings.
All of the MoU are very important but some are more equal than others so I
am personally quite excited about the MoU between the departments of
correctional services because our people live together and do good and bad
things together and we have to have a way of managing them properly and
catering for their rehabilitation where required.
The other one that I am quite excited about is the one regarding free
movement of people across our borders. I must emphasise that the borders are
very porous but this free movement of people speaks about legal border
crossings. We have to be very careful on how we implement this lest criminals
derive more benefit from it than law abiding citizens.
These are exciting times Mr President for our governments and our people, I
deliberately use the term people and not peoples because of history, geography,
social and cultural factors we are indeed one people.
It will be in the implementation that the proof of the pudding will be
tested.
Thank you!
Questions and answers
Question: Prime Minister Mosisili, I wanted to ask you about soccer - there
is talk that there is a conspiracy between South Africa and Lesotho against the
Ugandans and therefore their game was cancelled on Saturday?
The elections in February were favourably commented on by almost all
observers. But there seems to be discontent among the opposition with regard to
the allocation of seats according to the proportional representation system. Do
you feel this system is working or is there a problem?
Answer: Regarding the question of the soccer game I am not very well
informed. But I understand that the Tanzanian officials had not obtained the
necessary visas and/or permits and hence they did not arrive in time to conduct
the match on Saturday.
This is perhaps a wake up call for the Southern African Development
Community (SADC) as a whole to say we are a community and it high time that we
integrated in a way that this movement of our citizens can indeed be more
easily facilitated and in a way that the nation of one of the Member States of
the community is not prevented from crossing the border into another country of
the community for lack of visas. It says we have to work very hard indeed to
complete this process of integration. This is how I wish to respond to this
matter.
On the matter of elections in Lesotho, you are quite right. Not only the
elections in February but also previous ones have been characterised as free
and fair, just, transparent but for some reason or other, the post election
period in Lesotho is now habitually being characterised by disturbances; so we
thought we had closed this chapter with the mixed member proportional
system.
You are quite right in observing there is some uneasiness, unhappiness about
the way in which the proportional representation seats were allocated. That is
in fact a matter that has been taken to the courts of Lesotho so the lawyers
tell me this matter is sub-judice.
There is an initiative by SADC to allow for the stakeholders to revisit the
allocation of the proportional seats by the Independent Electoral Commission
(IEC). To that extent, the former President of Botswana Sir Ketumile Masire was
in Maseru recently to facilitate dialogue over some of the issues and indeed
agreement has been reached on what else to come and to look at how the
proportional seats were allocated.
I must be fair to you and say the cause seems to have been the alliances
that some parties formed in preparation for the elections and so we will await
the ruling of the courts to say whether or not these alliances were legal or
lawful.
Question: Prime Minister Mosisili can you kindly give us an update of the
curfew in Maseru, why was it deemed necessary and for how long will it be in
place? And what is the general security situation in Maseru?
Answer: Last Friday the Commissioner of Police announced a curfew from 06h00
pm to 06h00 am.
This was precipitated by the occurrence of a few unfortunate incidents in
which the residences of Ministers were attacked. Bodyguards of two Ministers at
the gates of their residences were attacked, their weapons and communication
devices taken away.
The third incident involved the hijacking of a ministerial motor vehicle.
The vehicle was then commandeered to the residence of the particular minister
to which easy access was gained. Fortunately the Minister was not in this
vehicle. The guns of the security guards were then taken away and shots were
fired into the residence. These events happened under the cover of
darkness.
The Commissioner of Police thought it necessary to contain these acts of
crime and imposed the 6pm to 6am curfew which has been in operation since
Saturday.
When I talked to the Deputy Prime Minister and Acting Prime Minister I was
briefed that the Commissioner of Police was reviewing the times of this curfew
and would perhaps modify it to 8pm to 5am. This would allow for workers
especially those working in the textile factories and other economic activities
to get to work early and reach home safely in the evenings.
So, yes indeed a curfew was imposed in Maseru, precipitated by these acts of
violence.
Issued by: Department of Foreign Affairs
19 June 2007
