It is hard to believe the information revealed by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) this week that political parties have failed to account for about M12 million, which they are allocated as funding for election campaign.Lesotho, with the total population of 2.2 million, has around 30 registered political parties – and those that have registered with the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) so that they can be eligible to contest elections are entitled to party funding depending how many candidates they place. It requires only around 500 people to register with the IEC.
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Feb. 28, 2019
3 min read
If gold rusts, what will the iron do?
Editorial Comment
According to the PAC, almost all political parties, especially those represented in parliament, have failed to account for a combined total of M12million of election funding provided by the IEC. The PAC says the outstanding funds that were not accounted for to the IEC since general election of 2012 to general elections of 2017 as well as the local government elections, were supposed to have been reported to the IEC with authentic documentation on how they have been utilised. Surely we cannot be surprised why Lesotho’s civil service is so corrupt, with many public officers found to have stolen, committed fraud, committed forgery, unable to account, failing to account or ignorant about what happened to the public funds. We always wonder as we listen to the various government departments
alternating before the PAC: Are they thieves? Are they crooks?
Are they corrupt? Are they conversant with the jobs they are given? Do they have enough powers to take responsibility over what they do? Are they qualified for the job? Why are they not being monitored and evaluated often? This is because we have not heard even a single department that is able to give full and satisfactory account of public funds they have used. We have stopped wondering ever since the political parties have their turn to appear before the PAC.
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Majority of them have dismally failed to account. It is the case of gold that has rusted and the civil servants – who are highly politicised and are probably fully aware of how their political leaders fail to account – being the iron, cannot avoid being rotten. It is time the IEC and the country hold political parties accountable by introducing strict screening method meant to preserve the peoples taxes, although it must not restrict development of political will, inspiring and furthering of political education and promotion of active participation by individuals in political life.
All parties must register with IEC once the IEC can physically convince itself that they have offices with full physical, phone numbers, postal and electronic contacts; that they have registered 5000 membership of identifiable persons with Identification Documents; they have opened a separate bank account jointly signed for by leader, secretary general and treasurer; have appointed an officer as the accounting officer to account for the funds; that they must submit returns in the form of financial books annually; and that they hold annual conferences as well as elective conferences within a period of five years. Any party that fails to comply with the above should be struck of the roll, surcharged and penalised to refund the public funds – and all its office bearers be charged criminally if they fail to account.
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