We’re playing with fire!

Sesotho se re, “sethoto se hlalefa ke ho utloa bohloko”. Ha se nna ke Sesotho. This Sesotho phrase means a fool will only learn by feeling the pain of its mistakes. A fool! This opinion piece is largely written as a response to the recent warning issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that Lesotho could go insolvent or bankrupt, come early 2022. I mean if you still have a bit of conscience and grey matter left, that statement should send shivers down your spine. However, Hee naha ena e tsamaisoa hampe ena. Ekare taxi ea 4+1. Aikh’ona Bo-Ntate! Hee re tlo utloa ka letlalo. My apologies to our fellow readers that were not able to interpret what I’ve written in Sesotho. What I tried to say is; Basotho will one day cry over spilt milk due to continuous mistakes they make. This issue of insolvency is very, very, very serious and countries that were declared insolvent found it very difficult to come out of it. But what does insolvency mean? It simply means Lesotho is not generating enough tax revenue in order to run the state (pay salaries + fuel) and to pay its debt obligations (suppliers + loans). As a result, the Lesotho government has to dip into reserves that keep the Loti and Rand on parity (1:1). So, if reserves get depleted, the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) may unpeg the Loti currency to the rand and what would that mean? That means the Loti currency would suddenly lose value and prices of basic products and services would suddenly sky rocket. Examples being bread, fuel and other staples. I guess you remember what we discussed last week on inflation. The theme of today’s opinion piece is “fire”, mollo or umlilo! No, we are not here to talk about a certain Mr Mollo but the dangers of abusing an element named fire. You see fire is one of the most mysterious elements that we have on planet earth. It has an ability to cause devastation by destroying matter to ashes. At the same time, there are good things that can emerge after the effects of fire. When dry grass is burnt down to ashes in the winter season, what usually sprouts from the ashes is grass that is deep green and full of life. That’s is the beauty of nature. Even when gold is purified, it has to undergo the highest form of temperatures for it to be in its purest form. That is the beauty of fire. However, the process of undergoing high temperatures can be extremely excruciating. I guess that is what nations such as Zimbabwe had to endure for the past twenty to twenty-five years. Twenty-five years of gruelling fire and hell. But you see what is most concerning is that nations such as Lesotho go on to repeat the same old mistakes that Zimbabwe underwent and no country is immune to failure. Let me tell you a short story. Once upon a time, my daughter was learning to crawl during the winter season but she had this fascination of crawling straight to the gas heater. I guess the fascination of three red bars from the gas heater attracted so much attention and curiosity as to what would happen if she placed her tiny little fingers into the bars. As a human instinct and I guess more of a parental instinct, the first call of duty was to raise the alarm bells and say, “cha-cha”. So, I made so many cha-cha’s in one day and the poor little girl kept on crawling back to the heater. Sometimes, her sister (helper) would shout out and say, “hei uena, tloha mono”. Guess what? Barely a minute later, someone would be crawling back to the gas heater. Then a thought came to mind and said, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea for her to taste what she’s been yearning for. Well, I know that a lot of our fellow female readers will say that I was thinking evil things to allow a one-year old girl to touch a bar heater. But I was just tired of making cha-cha sounds. But deep down I thought, I’m tired and I want this heater to give her, her mother (well it makes more sense in Sesotho of-course). To cut the long story short, the spirit of God entered my heart and I averted a disastrous situation that would have led me to sleep in the garage that evening. Underneath the car engine for some added heat. But what is the moral of the story? No matter how many warnings one can make, people just don’t listen. I mean, I always call my friend that works at Lesotho Electricity Company (LEC), whenever I see people relieving themselves behind electric transformers. There’s usually a bold message written “danger/kotsi/gevaar” but people still go ahead and urinate behind transformers. My friend from LEC usually answers my call says, “Yah, that’s good. I want that transformer to fry his meat-balls, then he’ll tell me how it feels like”. Well it’s more humorous when said in our mother-tongue language. You see, people never listen unless they fall in danger. Even if you tell a drunkard to stop driving under the influence of alcohol, the message will only sink in the day they land on a hospital bed in some ward at Queen ’Mamohato Hospital. People just don’t listen! This is a disease that commonly affected Basotho and ba nahana ke li-clever hampe but quite the opposite. Clever tsa li-bari. Yes, the IMF has issued a few warnings but no, there’s still a sector of our nation that still believes that things are not as bad as they sound. Basically, the IMF is just barking or howling at the moon. Well, if you are one of those people that still think Lesotho has a lot of money, then we have a big problem. I once had a tiring conversation with one politician and he kept telling me of how much Lesotho is rich and has a lot of money. Let’s take a look at a country named Zimbabwe and no offence to my editor and our fellow Zim brothers and sisters but yours is a story to share and for the whole world to learn from. More-so, for nations such as Lesotho, eSwatini and South Africa because it has started to decay due to corruption. You know, I first heard of the word, “hyper-inflation” when our lecturer at the University of Johannesburg made reference to Zimbabwe about the spiralling cost of food and products. I understand that at some point, things got out of hand to an extent where if one buys bread, the price would increase from walking from the shelf to the till-point. If you grab a loaf of bread from the shelf at the price of M575.50, by the time you get to the till point, it would be M975.50. Whether true or false, the situation was dire. Zimbabwe went through hell. But you see, the situation in Zimbabwe was mostly due to politicians failing to heed warnings and I remember a time when experts used to warn Zimbabwe in the late-90’s. Hela Zimbabwe! Guess what happened? The way that Zimbabwe was so prosperous, the thought of it being poor was just un-imaginable. It was the bread basket of Africa. I mean Zimbabwe had a proper middle class even before nations such as Lesotho and to a large extend, South Africa, could imagine what a black middle class was. There was also a sector of very affluent Zimbabweans with class. Real class. Na Basotho ba teng ba nang le class? Ke bo mang? Then, what happened? I tell you, nations do fail and Lesotho is next if we’re not careful. To conclude, should Lesotho find itself in insolvency, it may be forced to make very unpopular decisions under desperate situations. One, South Africa may offer a bail-out under very tough terms and conditions. One of the conditions could be to forfeit the highlands water royalties in order to finance the bailout of which is highly likely to happen. Two, South Africa could allow Lesotho to collapse and go into a wait and see approach. I tell you, by the time a loaf of bread hits M1 795.00, because of a weak currency, Basotho will be crying out loud for an incorporation into South Africa, “Hee Ntate Ramaphosa, bula!” Akere ebile Basotho ba boi. They are not as resilient as Zimbabweans, they will just cry to be incorporated into South Africa. After all, 75% of Basotho already carry South Africa ID documents. The warning of insolvency should be taken very seriously. It’s not a laughing matter and to come out of it takes years of hard work. Lesotho is really playing with fire here. But as the saying goes, sethoto, se hlalefa ke ho utloa bohloko. On the other hand, I’m conflicted. Part of me feels like Basotho need to undergo the wraith of fire to gain wisdom and discipline. Then they will know why corruption and mismanagement of the state is bad. They will know why bad leadership is bad and they will emerge stronger and wiser than ever before. ‘Mako Bohloa