MASERU - The Lesotho Wool Centre has paid 29, 996 wool farmers and 18, 427 mohair farmers for the 2018/2019 season.

Minister of Small Business Development, Cooperatives and Marketing Chalane Phori said this when addressing the media on the payments made to the small stock farmers in Maseru on Monday last week.
He said these numbers represented 98.8 percent of all farmers adding that out of 49, 007 wool and mohair farmers, only 584 had not yet been paid due to a number of reasons that included those staying far away like in South Africa, lack of bank details verification and farmers whose names did not appear in the wool and mohair booklist.
He said money amounting to M10 million was yet to be paid to farmers after the process that had now taken over a month to access had been finalised.
Mr Phori explained that money to be paid to the 584 farmers amounted to M4.5 million, with the rest being balance and adjustments to effected payments, further mentioning that a good number of farmers, whose produced had not been paid for, might have fallen victim to wool that was smuggled out of the country and could not be paid.
Meanwhile the Ad Hoc Committee that was assigned to investigate the sale of wool and mohair has made its recommendations to parliament last week following its findings.