Open Letter to Dr Majoro

Dear Dr Majoro, ‘Ba dra aza ama dra ‘baruri aza si. Loosely translated this Ugandan phrase means people understand the pain of sickness by experiencing it themselves. Dr Majoro, I carve this dispatch as a frustrated and disillusioned bona fide tax-paying and law-abiding Lesotho citizen who from time to time has had the occasion of standing in long queues at times in scorching heat and sometimes in frosty cold weather exercising my right to elect a government that will address my needs within my rights as contained in the Constitution of the Kingdom of Lesotho. As one of the many Lesotho citizens who have an unquenchable love for sport and recreation, I have been stunned by how successive governments have over the past decades denigrated the sport and recreation industry in the Kingdom. Like many, I ask myself: Where have we gone wrong? Why it that sport and recreation are not considered as a priority area as the Kingdom seeks solutions for the escalating unemployment rate? Dr Majoro, during the colonial era, our European masters had already comprehended the value of sport and recreation. I am aware that Lesotho was never a colony but a protectorate but the crux of my submission to you remains the same. During that era, those who controlled our destiny or our grandfathers and fathers’ destiny founded sport and recreation clubs where they would spend their rest days socialising based on a common objective. A person of my age would have thought that our elders upon gaining independence would sustain such practices for the good of their descendants. I was definitely wrong. Maybe I am right to a certain degree. I remember the likes of the late Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda, may his soul rest in peace, and a number of his counterparts who led their countries in breaking free from the shackles of their European masters used to parade their national teams as measuring yardsticks of how they had espoused themselves onto their subjects. Then most of the nations that had acquired their freedoms religiously supported their national teams. The likes of Chipolopolo which then was affectionately referred to as the KK XI was a regular feature in the state trips as well as state receptions that President Kaunda undertook. After diplomatic meetings, the Saturday afternoons would be about President Kaunda and his peers parading before their nations their national football teams. Lesotho was not an exception during the era of the late Dr Leabua Jonathan, may his soul rest in peace. Likuena as the Lesotho national football team was known and is still known today and its players then had hero status. A good number of them were rewarded with civil service jobs or jobs in the disciplined forces. That no longer exists for reasons best known to those in government. Ntate Majoro, I might have been very young in the 1970s but that does not make me oblivious to the fact that the Lesotho education system then yielded much better civil service officers than the ones we currently have. I challenge you to ask a group of people who were in the civil service in the 1970s and a group in the current civil service and ask them to pen letters. I can bet that those officers who served in the 1970s can outwit the current cadre by far. My point herein is to adduce to you that our current curriculum is suspect in terms of how it prepares an all rounded civil service officer, by this I mean the quality of officials being positioned into the civil service. Believe you me, over the two decades that I have been in service, even today I rely to some degree on the tried and tested civil service officers who served in the 1980s. I am sure even yourself you place much trust in the neo-retired civil service officer when it comes to penning official correspondence. I guess this is to a greater extent the reason why in politics the older generation is yet to be phased out. But then Dr Majoro, in as much as the Lesotho government prides itself in the current education system or curriculum in actual fact it is not benefitting the Kingdom at the service level, the same curriculum is also waning a number of sectors in our economic sector. I will for now focus on how the current Lesotho curriculum is failing the sports and recreation sector and how the Government of the Kingdom of Lesotho is very comfortable with the way things are. With all due respect, Dr Majoro, you will agree with me when I say the manner in which Ministers in the Education and Sport portfolios are appointed seems more like oops I nearly forgot so and so, and well then lets place such in the aforementioned portfolios. As this dispatch unfolds you will realise what I am talking about. To predicate my argument above, Ntate Majoro, you will agree with me that during your secondary school years, some of your school mates were playing in the elite football league in the country. Then, your peers would also play for the school team as well. This was facilitated by the then curriculum in that school was not an employment type of activity for students as opposed to what is happening today. Today, students are at school as early at 7am and will only leave school at 4pm. Then there was Physical Education as early as primary school and some days were designated sports days. You will agree with me that you were already in government, probably in a different capacity when the curriculum that had proven to be serving the Kingdom with aplomb was changed into the current curriculum. You have seen the same curriculum decimate a number of institutions. It is sad to state that sport and recreation have been the hardest hit by that fateful Cabinet resolution to abolish Physical Education in schools; primary and secondary and by extension tertiary levels. The effect of this from a sport science perspective has been the impedance of our athletes sporting DNA and brain capacity. Let me illustrate this in the most simplest of manners possible. If you we to take the case of football, the Lesotho Football Association runs a grassroots football programme across the country. The programme is aimed at increasing football appreciation for children aged between 6 and 12 years. This programme is prescribed for primary school students. It is not technically intensive but more introductory in nature. My knowledge of the education system makes me believe that a normal student will move from primary school at the age of 13 or 14 to secondary education. Once children reach Grade 8, they no longer have time to practise sport because they spend excessively long hours per day in class. I know because my child is in Grade 8. At 7am they have to be attending study before classes start at 8am and end at 4pm. From there they have to go and be part of the shoving for spaces in the appalling and unsafe public transport system. They reach their homes at 5pm at the earliest. They then have to change and attend training sessions, but the question is at what time? Suppose they are able to get to the training fields, a majority of the training fields are co-shared with elite teams and the sad truth is that priority is given to the senior teams. The unavoidable effect then is that children between the ages 13 and 18 do not get to undergo structured football development, and the same applies to other sport codes. Therefore, athletes have to wait until they reach the age of 18 to return to the structured development. This brings about a situation where an 18-year-old potential athlete now has to start at the age where a 14-year-old should have been in order to recover lost time while working through their academics at secondary level for that matter. If it will take five years to recover the systematic structured development that means that by the time our athletes are 23 years they possess a sport brain of an 18-year-old who has undergone proper structured development. I know you have heard the outcry from the sport sector venting their anger at the leadership of the sport organizations. It cannot be that you and the Cabinet you lead as well as the Parliament of the Kingdom of Lesotho have not heard and discussed such outcries. If you have not, then this serves to illustrate how the government of Lesotho views sport. Ekaba ke nnete hore sello sa tsuonyana ha sehlomole phakoe Ntate. I guess you probably haven’t addressed this matter on account of you exploring the sport environment and identifying the challenges that face the sport fraternity. Collectively, the Lesotho government has not invited sport practitioners’ perspectives and as such has renounced the opportunity to fully understand the challenges we sport practitioners face as we operate an ignored entity. In terms of sport development and performance, it is remiss of the government of Lesotho to expect podium performances while it does not invest in sport infrastructure. Ntate Majoro, I wish to invite you, at my expenses, to take a tour of all schools or rather randomly identified schools in Lesotho. We should not disturb the classes, but upon our arrival at these schools we should head straight to the sports grounds. Most of these school grounds are in such a dilapidated state that you would fancy rearing goats and sheep on them. No child can develop their sport talents on such facilities. How does the government expect Basotho athletes to perform well locally and internationally yet the same government has no interest in developing facilities be it at schools or in the communities? I know you are one who is not afraid of reading. If so, you will have most probably come across a newspaper piece(s) where the writers lamented the common practice where Lesotho representative teams as well as athletes only receive preparatory funding a day or two before they leave for their competition venues. At times, funding arrives after the events and in most cases than not evaporates into the unknown. I would like to know what your position is about this issue. I know you are aware about the upcoming AUSC Region 5 Games to be hosted by Lesotho from December 3-12, 2021. I put it to you that Team Lesotho is expected to perform well in these games as a host. Unfortunately, Team Lesotho has not received even a cent in respect of training and preparation funds. Is this the Lesotho we want in terms of sport and recreation Ntate Prime Minister? Dr Majoro, the government you are leading has established albeit at the insistence of SADC, the Regional Headmaster of governments in Southern Africa to set up a National Reforms Authority, the NRA. It is sad that in 2021, the NRA did not find any reason to include in its agenda sport and recreation. It does not surprise me because even the National Vision 2020 Policy Framework besides the two lines contained in the document which read ‘By 2020 sport in Lesotho will be professional’ nothing ever became of this and we are in September 2021. The word professional and professionalize have been used by all new Ministers in the Ministry of Gender and Youth, Sport and Recreation and all have failed to achieve the goal of professionalising sport in the Kingdom. Professionalisation of sport is not what well carved speeches produced by those who assume to understand sport and given to the newly appointed Ministers just in the same manner that bait is given to fish is. The process is arduous and requires meticulous planning. It takes dedication, passion and resources to achieve it. You may want to argue that I have a role in the pursuit to professionalise sport. Yes I agree, but I will tell you that to produce a wooden table, you need to have a forest first and foremost, then have tools and the skill to produce a table. If your master doesn’t have the forest, where will the wood, the basic ingredient in the production of the table come from? Likewise, for me and others to professionalize sport, we need facilities, and the government will as well as resources, not only on the eve of national elections but throughout our lives. Professionalisation of sport is not as easy as organizing a political party rally, it takes much more than that, and requires the deployment of officials who are willing to work with those in the industry. No one person has been bestowed with knowledge in all spheres, even our Lord Jesus Christ had to rely on the twelve Apostles in order to deliver the word of God. I know you know well what I am referring to here. In about nine months from now you will issue the writ of elections. That is if you survive the upcoming vote of no confidence. I wish and dearly pray that you scamper through this one and continue your tenure in office. I sincerely wish you well. As soon as you issue the writ, the football fraternity will be derailed from its programmes as many an aspirant MP will all of a sudden have money to sponsor constituency football competitions, at times there are about four to five such competitions per constituency. Does this mean that for you politicians, sport is only about you flashing your financial might in pursuit of parliamentary seats? Other than the pursuit of Parliamentary seats, upon ascending to the titles of Honourable, the affection for sport cedes? Ntate Majoro, mine is not to fight the government of the Kingdom of Lesotho which you are leading, I only set out to predicate the plight of sport and recreation in the Kingdom. I only want you to understand that sport and recreation can be harnessed to bring in foreign currency into the kingdom and change the lives of the less fortunate. I cannot sit and watch as the fortunate prosper in formal employment at the expense of the less fortunate. Generally, sportsmen and women do not make it to tertiary education, but we can create opportunities for the less fortunate by creating an alternative to formal education post-secondary school. While we may have lost valuable time, procrastinating will further put an end to opportunities for those who currently possess the talent and skills to pit against their peers worldwide. Ntate Prime Minister, I have a strong conviction that together we can get things back to where they were in the past, where they should be now and in the future. All I ask from you is an audience with your Cabinet and hopefully Parliament to present and defend the case of Sport and Recreation. If there may have been areas in this dispatch where I may have gone overboard, pardon me, the passion in me when addressing issues of sport and recreation gets the better of me at times. It is not and will never be my intention to attack and or disrespect you as a person and in your professional capacity, nonetheless, my request for your audience remains, Yours truly, Mokhosi MOHAPI