A minister is a public servant

In one of our Herbal-life breakfast sessions, one of my friends once said, “ao ntate, Lesotho mona, ha u ka bona motho a hlaha le mane, a tsamaea a qhalile mabatha, a ts’oere fono tse peli ka letsohong, libaki li mo feta, bobatsi bo kene ka mahafing. Ha ngata, motho eno ke letona”. Roughly translated: In Lesotho, if you see a person walking boastfully, with two phones held in one hand with an oversized jacket, chances are, that person is a cabinet minister. Even though we laughed our lungs out, a large part of that statement was true. There’s just something that goes wrong when a person is suddenly appointed a minister. Why do I say that? I attended a funeral of a good friend in Mazenod about a month ago. Yes, it was during the current lockdown but as usual the place was packed. Well, mostly because our people attend funerals as a way of getting one nutritious meal. One good meal per week. There was a minister in attendance as well but one thing that I found irritating was how our people worship ministers and elevate them to demi-Gods (melingoana). When it was time for the minister to deliver a speech, a government official that I assumed to be a PS, stood up and ran to the podium, whilst mumbling a hymn that we could not really grasp. She ran hastily to prepare a platform for the minister to deliver a speech comfortably. Ao PS ea batho! Ea khothometsea, e hakoa ke ropo tsa litente le litulo. (Poor PS, she stumbled and got snagged in the tent’s ropes in her rush). But why do we act this way when ministers are around? That’s because in Lesotho, we often forget that ministers are public servants and not celebrities. Re lula re thothomella matona (we keep on kowtowing individuals). They are elected and appointed in office to serve the interests of the electorate being the tax-payers and to be servants of the poor. Unfortunately, we, the electorate and tax-payers, end up creating these monsters called ministers. They start as good people when they want to be elected in office and turn into monsters once they assume power. We are the ones that create these arrogant people. I remember a time when I was invited to present a project at the Ministry of Development Planning, a few months ago. There was group of business people that were selected to present projects individually for a “thing” called Lesotho economic labs. What a waste of my precious time. We were all in the boardroom presenting before a panel made up of four ministers. In the middle of the presentations, I saw one lady running towards a side table decorated with an array of biscuits, tea and coffee. I assumed the lady to be an official from the Ministry of Planning. My thinking was that finally, we were going to have some tea and biscuits because we had taken forever to even start presenting. How considerate I thought. No, the poor lady took four cups and saucers and four small plates full of biscuits. Remember, I said we were presenting before a panel of four ministers. Yes, to our disappointment, the tea and biscuits were specifically for the ministers to have a snack whilst listening to our great business idea. We were all sitting there, watching a group of ministers having tea and biscuits. Banna ke sa lapa! Tafoleng ea bahlomphehi mane ele, romo, romo, romo. Ele ha ho buburoa li-biscuits, ebe ho habola tee. I’ve never been that irritated my life. I mean what’s that for manners? Eating in front of a group of hungry people. But you see that’s our second nature as Basotho. We have elevated ministers to superior beings. So much that they forget who they are. People that are elected by the people to serve the best interests of the people. As a follow up to last week’s opinion piece about poor public relations by the traffic department, one fundamental weakness that I picked up is that our public servants don’t understand how democracy works. We said democracy in its basic interpretation, is a system where a government is elected or chosen by the people, in order to serve the best interests of the people. In Sesotho, ke puso ea sechaba, ka sechaba molemong oa sechaba. The common denominator is “the people” (sechaba). So, in Lesotho, people elect a government and pay heavy taxes to sustain obligations of running that government. The very same people will be ignored when major decisions are taken in the country. Tax-payers are excluded from taking part in key decisions such as budget allocations, the choice of vehicles for ministers and the latest blander of the new national number plate designs. Things could be one hundred times better in Lesotho had our ministers and government officials at large looked at the electorate as tax-payers. The minute our public servants could remember and always remember that government is run on tax-payers money, that will be the day we have a paradigm shift in Lesotho. Let’s look at a very touchy subject that we all know of. Is there a reason why ministers have to serve the poor in Mercedes Benz vehicles? Is there a reason why PS’s have to serve the public in luxury vehicles? Li-Lexus? Is there a valid reason to allocate three vehicles to each minister whilst some police stations don’t even have one vehicle? I’m talking about police stations such as Flight-One Police Station in Mazenod. A Police Station as important as that one does not even have a single police van. Is there a reason for each minister to have three vehicles? Absolutely not! Basotho people have to learn to use their democratic right. You cannot have a situation where you hire a helper at your home and switch roles. Where the helper sits in front of the TV all day, with their feet on the table, and orders you around the house. “Fetch me a glass of water. Go wash the dishes. Go clean the toilets.” I mean, a situation where the helper sends you to the shop to buy makoenya so that she can snack on something whilst watching TV. Ka chelete ea hao! (With your money!) We need to understand the notion of tax-payers money. There is no such thing as government money or chelete ea ‘muso. No! It is all tax payers money and our ministers have to learn to respect every cent of that money. Tax payers should have an upper hand in this equation. That’s how a democracy is supposed to work. Lastly, were Basotho ever consulted when a choice of vehicles for ministers was made? I mean, why does a minister need a Prado, a Mercedes and a double-cab van? Who made that choice? Why can’t ministers use Toyota double cabs or Toyota Fortuners? South African ministers have one official vehicle. After all, Lesotho is a very poor country. Can’t we as the tax-payers lodge a complaint to the Ombudsman to look into the issue of three vehicles per minister and get rid of Mercedes-Benz vehicles all-together. Mercedes-Benz vehicles should be exclusively reserved for the Royal Family. Public servants (Ministers) should serve in Toyota double-cabs le hona SRX because they are on duty to serve the poor. It will also help us to tone down the arrogance. What do you think? ‘Mako Bohloa