Mosisili lauds 4% salary bump

MASERU – FORMER Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili has welcomed an increase of 4 percent for civil servants in 2018/19 budget.
“This is good because the civil servants at least have something to put on the table for their families,” Mosisili said.
“The government should focus mostly on the poor of the poorest down there in remote areas,” he said.
He however criticised Finance Minister Dr Moeketsi Majoro for not saying anything about the Old Age Pension (OAP) although it was a central issue during the campaign.

Mosisili said the government had promised the people to reduce the pension age to 60. Mosisili said they were expecting the government to state how much money has been allocated to each ministry “and how that allocation is going to be used”.
“I think they have missed a point in that aspect,” he said.

Mosisili however said he believes the government had done its best despite declining revenues. Dr Majoro said SACU revenue for the year 2018/19 has declined by M616.1 million from its Fiscal Year 2017/18 level.
In real terms, this means that the government would need nearly a billion maloti to cover the same programmes, Majoro said.
The DC chairman Motlalentoa Letsosa said he was worried that the budget did not say anything about the elderly.
“I’m so surprised if this government is giving people an increase of 4 percent because they said we are “liphiri” (hyenas) when we gave people the increase of 4 percent,” Letsosa said.

“So, I’m more surprised that they are doing the same thing.”
He said the people in government are “good at talking but cannot walk their talk”.
Movement for Economic Change (MEC) leader Selibe Mochoboroane said though the proposed budget is fairly good, it had not met his expectations.
He said the government had earlier announced that the 2018/19 budget would be one of its kind in the history of Lesotho.

Mochoboroane said the government policies in the budget are sound and clear but they would not amount to much without financial support.
He commended the government for clustering the ministries saying this has made it easier to monitor them.
Majakathata Mokuena Thakhisi, former Principal Secretary in the Trade Ministry under the Mosisili administration, said from an economic perspective “the budget is tight because there is no money”.

He said the government is going to finance it through international support such as European Union (EU).
“Yet we cannot be sure if the EU would support Lesotho’s fiscal budget this year as it failed to do so in 2017/18 budget,” Mokuena Thakhisi said.
Mokuena Thakhisi said there are no new details in the budget as compared to the previous one.
But he mentioned that since the government has clustered its ministries, this will highly likely help reduce the costs of the government and increase inefficiency.

He said the 4 percent increase across the board has no significance as it is only an inflation adjustment.
He said the minister in his speech has shown that they are going to resuscitate the private sector so that jobs could be created through projects such as commercial agriculture.

“This is going to be a bit difficult because people down there do not have expertise to run projects,” he said.
Thakhisi said he was expecting the government to cut per diems for foreign trips.
He said it was not enough for the government to downgrade from first to business class.

Thooe Ramolibeli & Majara Molupe