Make Saturday a full working day

First and foremost, I would like to remind you of an inconvenient and irritating truth.

The Botswana Unified Revenue Services (BURS) is targeting a tax revenue collection totalling 44.6 billion Pula (M60.52 billion) in the current 2022/2023 financial year whilst Lesotho is only able to collect M7.5 billion Maloti from the domestic economy.

In summary, this means Botswana’s economy is roughly eight times the size of Lesotho. Eight times!

In actual fact, our domestic revenue target has to be M25 billion Maloti in order to meet the budgetary needs. This means LRA/RSL has to be mandated to collect M25 billion Maloti as a base point.

Yes, of course, the RSL cannot harvest the seed and the economy has to be expanded and grown in order to meet the target.

Incoming Prime Minister Sam Matekane needs to put fertiliser into the economy. But how do we mitigate this challenge of low economic activity that results in low tax revenue collection?

As a starting point, this means Basotho need to put in extra working hours in order for the economy to recover and ‘prosper’.

By putting in a few extra hours for the economy to recover, this could mean making Saturday a full working day.

Before we go into the details of how this could be done and I know that a lot of you are already saying, “enoa o ntse a pota”, I need to give credit where it’s due and compliment Ntate Matekane for making a bold move to trim the Cabinet to only 15 ministers/ministries.

About two weeks ago, I said the 1993 cabinet was made-up of 12 ministers. It was in fact, 11 ministers and my apologies for the error.

However, I realise that Monyane Moleleki has been in politics for a long time and was a minister in the first administration that ushered in democracy in 1993. That was before Nelson Mandela became the president of South Africa in 1994.

By the way, I also realise that in 1993, His Majesty King Letsie III was only 30-years-old. 30! Now, His Majesty will be a pensioner as of next year as he’ll be celebrating his 60th birthday in 2023.

I’m sure tenderpreneurs are already warming up to swallow all the catering tenders for the big 60th birthday bash.

In any case, it’s interesting to see that Matekane intends to merge a few ministries in order to achieve a goal of 15 ministries. I have a few suggestions to make.

Why not merge the Ministry of Forestry and Water and create one ministry and call it the Ministry of Environment, Water and Forestry? There is semblance between all the three elements.

Another suggestion is to merge the Ministry of Trade with Small Business and Cooperatives. But I think we need a super ministry named the Ministry of Agriculture and Nutrition.

I think nutrition is by far the biggest problem in Lesotho and impacts negatively on other factors such as health and food production. But most importantly, leave the Ministry of Development

Planning as a stand-alone ministry but re-name it to the Ministry of Economic Development and Planning.

This ministry should be tasked with managing the macro-economic policy, fiscal as well as the monetary policy. This task should be undertaken by Mme Retšelisitsoe Matlanyane (as a suggestion).

She would be best suited for the job.

Here is my point; due to the high rate of corruption in various government ministries and departments, the Ministry of Finance needs a numbers cruncher (an astute Chartered Accountant) to chase all the rats (likhoto) eating tax-payers money.

I mean, it comes as no surprise that our government system is infested by rats (likhoto).

Look at this scenario: how is a civil servant who earns M10 000 per month able to build a house worth M2 million, cash?

Okay, let me put it this way. Doesn’t it surprise you that there are double-storey houses mushrooming all over the country yet the public infrastructure (roads) is completely broken? Doesn’t that shock you?

Something doesn’t make sense here. A double storey, a double-cab, a Toyota Fortuner, private education for the kids on a salary of 10k per month?

Yes, there is a dead rat in the ceiling and this needs a Chartered Accountant to sort it out. Both the Minister and PS Finance should be chartered accountants because government employees are very mischievous.

Most of them are compulsive liars. How many times has the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) crashed? “IFMIS e oele.”

To correct this habit of lying, Matekane needs to get a sharp chartered accountant to catch all the rats eating tax-payers money. Kids go to bed on empty stomachs because of these heartless people.

But here is my point about making Saturday a full working day. Let’s paint a scenario and say; you are a student and your exam results come-out disappointing like the ABC and BNP election results.

There are two options to take to respond to the situation.

The first option is to relax, follow the status quo and hope that the good Lord will work miracles. The second option is to mitigate the problem by working harder.

To put in a few extra hours in a day to practice all math and physics formulae (what’s the plural of formula?), until you get it right.

This is exactly what we need to do.

To put in a few extra-hours in a working week. Let’s all be mindful that Lesotho has the lowest Gross Domestic Product (GDP), in the SADC region. This means Lesotho has the lowest output of products and services produced in one year.

Simply put, we are not a productive nation. Our GDP is about US$2 billion (M36 billion). However, the one published is US$1.845 Billion (2020) and that’s very low.

If the GDP of South Africa is US$301.9 billion (2020), Lesotho should at the very least have a GDP of about US$10 billion.

This has to be our new target. To boost the GDP of Lesotho to US$10 billion! (M180 billion) This means growing the output of the current economy ten fold.

To achieve this task, we need to make Saturday a full working day.

This would have a lot of positive economic spin-offs. Firstly instead of thinking of trimming the public service staff-complement of 46 000 people, we can now think of introducing rotational staffing models and solutions and possibly open up government services until 7pm, during the week.

But most importantly, rotating staff for Saturdays could revive the economy on weekends.

Have you all seen how Maseru city dies on weekends? It becomes a ghost town. People sit at home and attend funerals, drink, engage in fights and cause car accidents. Car accidents are a heavy cost to the economy.

By making Saturday a full working day, this could increase productivity and energise the city.

But most importantly, my good friend, Fako Hakane (yes, he’s my friend) actually suggested that to increase the circulation of money in the economy, it would be to our advantage to pay civil servants on a fortnightly basis and I said what a brilliant idea.

This actually worked perfectly well for the economy of Maputsoe. Money exchanges hands at a much faster pace and this creates a higher multiplier effect.

However, we will need to improve the cash-flow situation in order to be able to pay salaries fortnightly.

This could go a long way in revitalising the economy and everyone would gain instead of waiting for the last week of the month where filling stations and shopping malls start seeing an increase in traffic volumes.

In closing, we need to think of creative ways to revive and energise the economy by using resources that are already at our disposal.

‘Mako Bohloa