A Travesty of Transparency: Why the High Court’s Electricity Tariff Judgment must be challenged

The recent judgement delivered by Justice Polo Banyane in the matter between The Advocates for the Supremacy of the Constitution, Bokang Sekopa, and the Minister of Energy alongside the Lesotho Electricity and Water Authority (LEWA) and the Lesotho Electricity Company (LEC), represents a significant missed opportunity for judicial activism in the realm of consumer protection.

While the court acknowledged the public importance of the matter, its ultimate dismissal of the application for review is a bitter pill for the Basotho public to swallow. This opinion piece contends that the court’s narrow interpretation of procedural compliance has come at the expense of substantive transparency and accountability.

For the sake of the economic welfare of every household and business in this country, the second applicant, Bokang Sekopa, must urgently seek an appeal.

At the heart of this dispute is a principle that should be sacrosanct in any democratic society: that state-protected monopolies like the LEC must be held to the highest standards of financial disclosure before they are permitted to reach further into the pockets of the citizenry.

Read the rest of this Opinion Piece in the latest copy of Maseru Metro.