A biometric system is an automatic technique used to identify a person based on their fingerprints and iris.

When installed passport applicants will have their fingerprints stored in a database.

Because each person’s fingerprints are unique the system will be able to detect when a person wants to make a fraudulent passport application.

The system will say when the last application was made and when the passport will expire.

The system will be able to detect people trying to acquire numerous passports under different names.

The passport department says the reason why Lesotho has a huge passport backlog is because some individuals are applying for many passports under different names.

We have no doubt that the system will help stop multiple applications.

What however worries us is the assertion by the passport services director, Sello Mokoena, that the biometric system will clean up the mess in his department.

Mokoena is correct to say that multiple applications are contributing to the passport backlog but he is wrong to think that they are the main source of the rot in his department. 

We believe the problem in the passport services department has little to do with multiple applications but more with corruption.

The biometric system will weed out multiple passport applicants but it will not detect corrupt officials that man Mokoena’s department.

The new system is mainly targeted at dishonest customers and not corrupt officials.

It is a noble initiative that is however limited in its effectiveness when it comes to dealing with corruption.

There are passport service workers who are running “private passport offices” right in the comfort of the department’s offices.

These officials have created sophisticated syndicates that are raking in thousands of maloti from their criminal activities.

The syndicates involve front-desk officers and those in the production section.

These officials have corrupted the whole process.

For years they have been sabotaging the process so that it grounds to a halt and force desperate people to pay them bribes.

A corrupt official thrives on slowing a process so that people get the impression that it is impossible to get a service on time.

That is how the syndicates at the passport department operate.

Mokoena does not need to launch a commission of inquiry to know who is running these syndicates.

In March this year it took our undercover reporter just a day to be linked to one of these syndicates.

She paid them M800 and got her passport in two days.

Mokoena needs to get to the bottom of these syndicates if he wants to run an efficient department.

He must ensure that corrupt officials are fired and brought to book.

Meanwhile we must say that we are worried that the department has gone into a denial mood as it seeks to clean its soiled image.

This week the department called a press conference to announce that it had caught a man who had a passport that had been tampered with.

Apparently it is the man himself who had reported to the department that his travel document had a problem after he discovered that some of the pages in his passport had details of two other people.

But instead of using the man’s information to deal with a broader problem in his department, Mokoena rushed to the police.

The man was fined M5 000 and will probably never get a passport again.

It didn’t matter that the man had reported himself.

The department saw it has opportunity to make capital out of the whole episode.

In the meantime the real criminals — corrupt passport officials — are enjoying freedom and the fruits of their evil ways.

 MASERU — October 2008.

The political star of Monyane Moleleki, the stalwart of the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) party and the longest serving minister, seemed to be waning.

His political clout was fading.

The political ground was dramatically shifted beneath him.

Or so it seemed.

The LCD youth league leadership which was supposedly aligned to him had just been disbanded for allegedly disrespecting the party leadership and leaking confidential party issues to the media.

His political opponents seemed to have meticulously planned to deliver a thundering political blow to Moleleki and it seemed to have worked after they booted the youth league leaders.

But things were just about to get worse for the Russian-trained journalist-turned-politician.

At the LCD’s conference in January 2009 his political rivals returned to deliver another blow, this time voting him out of the party’s national executive committee for the first time since the party was established in 1997.

All other candidates alleged to be aligned to his faction failed to make it into the committee.

The rival faction, which some say is led by the communications minister and LCD secretary-general Mothetjoa Metsing, had romped to victory and consolidated its grip on the party’s power structures.

They had the national executive and the youth league committees.

Brickbats started raining on Moleleki’s faction.

Some members of the interim youth committee wrote a secret letter to party leader Pakalitha Mosisili imploring him to fire Moleleki and other ministers for poor service delivery.

The now defunct Voice of the Free Democrats, a newspaper paper that was believed to be run by young party functionaries, also fired volleys at Moleleki and his so-called faction.

Some party insiders say a letter written by former LCD secretary-general and ex-cabinet minister Mpho Malie to a local bank and the party’s leadership alleging that funds allocated to block scheme farmers had been looted was aimed at Moleleki’s faction.

Now, fast forward to August 2010 and see how Moleleki has turned the tables.

Last weekend’s youth league elections marked his return.

As the results were announced the youths broke into innuendo-laden songs that were clearly celebrating the victory of Moleleki’s faction and the demise of Metsing’s group. 

“Khalema Moetapele, ho tloha Mahobong ho ea tsoa Taung batho ba ea re tsietsa (Our leader, please take action against these people, from Mahobong to Taung).

“They have become a serious problem,” they sang.

Although the youths did not mention names party insiders say the songs were directed at Metsing whose constituency is Mahobong and Malie who hails from Taung.

The songs, party insiders say, were a direct appeal to Mosisili to deal with the so-called Metsing faction.

When it was all done youth members from Moleleki’s faction had won all the nine leadership positions and, to put the cherry on the cake, they scooped four ordinary member positions in the committee.

But the battle is just starting for Moleleki’s faction, party sources say.

Moleleki’s faction might have the youth league but the Metsing faction still controls the national executive committee.

The women’s league, another key constituency, has been split between the two factions.

It is another fertile ground for a tussle for the control of the party.

In private conversations senior members of the Moleleki faction are gloating that they are now going for the national committee to have a firm grip on the party structures again.

The Sunday Express this week spoke to two senior members of the Moleleki faction.

“We might have won the LCD youth league committee and we are proud of the victory as we worked hard to outshine our opponents,” said one of the officials who has stuck with Moleleki for years.

“However, it must be noted that the fight has only just begun.

“It is now time to shake things up at the top. The face of the national executive committee should be transformed.”

He said “it is payback time” for the Metsing faction.

“Those people nearly finished us but we have bounced back because we quickly learnt to play their game,” he said.

“The tables have turned on them now.”

Another LCD official aligned to the Moleleki faction said he believed it was time people spoke openly about and freely addressed “the factionalism rocking the party”.

“It is time to talk about the factionalism within the LCD openly because it is there. Why hide it?” he charged.

The LCD’s deputy leader, Lesao Lehohla, seems to understand that the factional fights in the party are likely to move a gear up as the battle for the soul of the congress party intensifies.

“Now that the youth committee has been elected, it should be afforded the respect it deserves,” Lehohla said in his closing remarks at last weekend’s youth conference.

“Whatever differences there were should be cast aside because now we are one.”

However, history has shown that the factions in the LCD will never be “one”.

The battle continues.

 MASERU — The Premier League will tomorrow release match fixtures for the new season, giving teams only a week to prepare for their clashes on the opening day of the season next Saturday.

The start of the Vodacom Premier League has been delayed by three weeks because of elections for a new Premier League committee and club registrations.

Speaking to the Sunday Express on Thursday, Premier League public relations officer Lehlohonolo Matlosa said the league’s committee would meet today before releasing the fixtures list tomorrow.

“We are going to meet on Sunday,” Matlosa said.

“We are going are going to release the fixtures on Monday.”

Matlosa said he wasn’t sure whether the MGC Supa 8 cup competition would be played this season.

Last season the MGC Supa 8 kicked off in August but there has been no word from organisers or sponsors on the tournament so far.

The two-year agreement between the Matekane Group of Companies (MGC) and Lesotho Football Association ended last season.

“At the moment we are still in the dark about that (competition),” Matlosa said.

Matlosa said today’s meeting would thrash out main issues from last season such as refereeing.

He said the league will also conduct checks of club grounds and review football rules before the new season starts.

“Referees and secretaries of the clubs will be present at the meeting. We are going to go over areas such as the laws of the game to avoid the situations we had last season. We are going to check the grounds of the new teams in the league,” Matlosa said.

 MASERU — Around Africa this weekend national teams are kicking off their qualification campaigns for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) seeking to qualify for the continental showpiece to be held for the first time in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

For some countries, such as South Africa and Nigeria, the qualifiers represent an opportunity for a new beginning after turbulent times.

For others like Ghana and Zambia it is a chance to continue an upward curve while for Mauritius this weekend is a chance to see African megastar Samuel Eto’o when Cameroon pay a visit.

Swaziland also have a crowd-pulling tie against 2010 World Cup quarterfinalists Ghana this weekend while Rwanda, Burundi and Benin have the unenviable but exciting prospect of being in the same group as Didier Drogba’s Ivory Coast for this adventure due to end next October.

Only eight of the Confederation of African Football (Caf)’s 52 member countries will not be part of the qualifying series — and one of them is Lesotho.

Eritrea, Mauritania, Sao Tome e Principe, Seychelles, Central African Republic, Somalia and Djibouti who have problems varying from famine to military coups are the other nations to miss out.

Lesotho joined this exclusive club in February when the Lesotho Football Association (Lefa) disbanded Likuena for two years deciding not to register the senior side in the 2012 qualifiers.

The main reason was financial, that Lefa didn’t have enough money.

The secondary explanation was Lefa would use the time to build a stronger Likuena for the future.

The core of that plan the under-20 side is one tie away from qualifying for the Caf Under-20 Championship next year.

Nevertheless Lesotho is still going to lose out on the undeniable benefits of a qualifying campaign.

An estimated 7 000 fans turned up to cheer the Makoanyane XI against South Africa in a Caf Under-20 Championship qualifier at the Setsoto Stadium last month.

But instead of looking forward to a few more exciting and money-spinning outings Lesotho’s action-starved fans will not see their senior team play anytime soon.

Lesotho’s absence from the 2012 Afcon qualifiers in fact poses questions on several fronts.

For example, when will this under-20 side that is being groomed actually play as Likuena?

Since the end of 2010 Afcon/World Cup qualifying campaign in October 2008 Lesotho has played just ten times.

This includes two international outings against Botswana that can only be described as practice matches, two matches in Swaziland and two appearances at the Cosafa Senior Challenge last October.

In July a Lesotho development team travelled to Malawi and when 2012 comes around it will have been four years without a competitive match for Lesotho.

As it is Lesotho has a problem of attracting international opponents because of its performances — Lesotho has lost 17 of its last 33 outings — and a lowly world ranking of 155th.

Last year Malawi’s coach Kinnah Phiri refused to play against Likuena because he said they were not good enough.

With no Likuena it is hard to see national teams playing against a development team, unless they are duped like Botswana was, posing problems for Lesotho’s development plans.

This year Lesotho’s only action will be the Cosafa Challenge in Angola in November where a development team will again be sent.

More worryingly though is that Lefa still hasn’t said when Likuena will return to any type of action.

It remains unclear what formula Caf will use for the 2013 Afcon qualifiers and whether that will directly influence the 2014 World Cup procedure.

 If it happens, as has been mooted, that the current qualifiers will be used to determine the 2013 Afcon then Lesotho could find itself without a competitive game for longer period than previously thought.

Lesotho will fall further behind in the pecking order and the under-20 side will be lost.

Things already look gloomy. Lesotho only has four players playing outside the country, which is the least amongst the region’s countries, while the local premier league remains the only out-and-out amateur top-flight in the Cosafa region.

An African football pundit recently referred to a formula he called “soccernomics” saying “a national team’s success or failure can be directly linked to how well their respective country compares to their opposition in the following three areas: team experience, gross domestic product per capita, and population”.

In that spectrum the future looks bleak for Lesotho.

 MASERU — The Passport Services Department is in the process of acquiring a biometric system that will weed out people who make multiple passport applications or hold more than one passport.

A biometric system is an automatic technique used to identify a person based on their fingerprints and iris.

Once it is installed in Lesotho, passport applicants will have their fingerprints stored in a database.

Because each person’s fingerprints are unique the system will be able to detect when a person wants to make a fraudulent passport application.

The system will say when the last application was made and for how long the passport is valid.

The system will also be able to detect people who want to acquire numerous passports under different names.

The Passport Services Department says one of the reasons Lesotho has a huge passport backlog is because some individuals are applying for multiple passports under different names.

The department says many people already have more than one valid passport because the current system cannot detect multiple applications.

It is a criminal offence for a person to have two valid passports whether under the same names or different ones.

Passport services director Sello Mokoena told the Sunday Express that the biometric system will help clean up the mess in his department.

“That system is coming soon,” he said yesterday.

“Once we have the system it will be impossible for people to make multiple applications.

“That will mean we will only be dealing with people who are making new applications, replacements or renewals.”

Mokoena said the discussions that he had had with the Ministry of Home Affairs, under which his department falls, over a biometric system had been “fruitful”.

The ministry and the department, he said, were now working hard “to acquire the system as soon as possible”.

“The ministry wants this system in place urgently. The department is desperate for this system,” Mokoena said.

The department has been rocked by allegations of corruption over the past six months.

In March this year an undercover reporter from this paper uncovered a syndicate involving passport officials who were taking bribes to speed up the issuance of the travel documents.

The investigative story revealed how the syndicate was demanding as much as M800 to process a passport in two days.

It costs only M100 to get a passport through proper channels but because of the backlog some people have been on the waiting list for the past three years.

Nearly 200 000 applicants are still waiting for their passports but the department claims this number has reduced dramatically since June.

The department has also promised to eradicate corruption.

It recently moved its offices from the Pitso Ground to the old Disaster Management Authority building near the High Court.

Mokoena told the media that the Pitso Grounds offices had become a breeding ground for corruption.

Meanwhile, the department is eager to clean its image by showing evidence that its officers are not the only ones to blame for corruption in the issuance of passports.

On Friday the department hastily called a press conference where they told the reporters that they had caught a man who had a passport that had been tampered with.

Apparently it is Julius Ramotsokoane himself who reported to the department that his passport had been tampered with after he allegedly discovered that some of the pages in his passport had details of two other people.

Ramotsokoane, who had been using the passport since 2005, said he was only made aware of the inconsistence of his passport number when it was put through the scanner.

He was charged and fined M5 000.

The passport department says Ramotsokoane will not get a Lesotho passport again.

“Section 15 of the passports law of 1998 says so,” an official in the department said.

“It however does not say for how long a person who is found in possession of an illegal passport will not get one.”

 MASERU — Police will soon launch a countrywide blitz against motorists who have dodged paying spot fines for traffic offences over the years.

The crackdown will target what the police say are “thousands of motorists” who have either not paid their fines or gave police wrong names and identities to avoid being tracked.

The police say they will be mounting impromptu roadblocks on the country’s major roads to weed out defaulting offenders.

They will also been digging through their files for motorists who have not paid their fines.

Defaulting motorists will be summoned to appear in court.

Although most spot fines for traffic offences are pegged at only M30, most motorists do not bother to pay them within the situlated deadline of seven days from the date of issue.

Inspector Lekhotla Mokete told the Sunday Express that “thousands of motorists” have been ignoring their fines.

But now they will face the full wrath of the law, Mokete said.

Just last month, about 389 people were slapped with spot fines across the country but only 57 bothered to pay.

Over the years, Mokete said, there has been a trend where only a handful of motorists bother to pay their fines.

Mokete said police were initiating court cases against truant motorists.

“The police are always looking for people who have not paid their spot fines,” he said.

“Cases against them will be opened in the Magistrate’s Court.”

Mokete said people who lie to the police about their residential addresses and names when they are issued with traffic tickets will also be charged for deliberately giving false identities to the police.

“Lying about one’s identity is an offence,” he said.

“This practice has made it even harder for police to find people who have not paid their spot fines.”

“We thought giving spot fines was a more convenient punishment for people who commit road traffic offences,” said Inspector ‘Mantolo Mothibeli.

“The plan was for people to account for their mistakes, accept the spot fines and move on with their businesses without being arrested.

“They would then pay their spot fines within the seven-day deadline.”

She said the idea was to reduce the number of motorists who have to appear in the Magistrate’s Court for traffic offences.

“But now many are disobeying the regulation,” Mothibeli said.

“There are some people who have more than one spot fine. We are forced to take them to court.”

Spot fines are paid at Lesotho Revenue Authority offices in Maseru and other districts.

After paying the fines, offenders are supposed to report to the police with proof of payment so that their names can be cleared.

Drivers in Lesotho are notorious of shooting through red traffic lights, overtaking at wrong places and ignoring road signs.

Worried by the increase in the number of accidents and carnage on the roads, the government recently introduced a new training syllabus for learner drivers.

There are also plans to introduce a demerit system for bad drivers.

Under that system bad drivers will have points deducted from their licences for specific offences.

When the points have reached a certain level, motorists will lose their licences and they will be banned from driving for some time.

South Africa has already started using the demerit system.

In a nutshell, the new South African system set to come into effect this month would operate as follows:

Drivers will be awarded 12 points at the beginning of each year.

If you lose all 12 points inside one year, your licence will be suspended.

After three suspensions, your licence will be cancelled.

If a driver remains penalty-free at the end of the year, the next year would start with an additional 12 points plus a bonus, making them a total of 24 points.

This process would be repeated every year, with good drivers building up a bank of points.

In the case of major traffic violations, the law will continue to take its normal course.

The new demerit system has been made possible by the introduction of the card-format driver’s licence, which enables traffic authorities to store the record of every driver.

Demerits will be rated according to a unit scale.  For example, if a motorist is found with an unregistered vehicle, he/she will be docked two demerit points and get 10 penalty units, which means a fine of R500.

If you are caught doing up to 20 percent over the speed limit, you will get a fine of R250, but no demerit points — for example, speeding up to 72km/h in a 60km/h zone or up to 144km/h in a 120km/h zone.

If you are 21 percent to 30 percent over the speed limit, you will get one demerit point and a R500 fine — for example, travelling up to 78km/h in a 60km/h zone or up to 156km/h in a 120km/h zone.

Doing more than 60 percent over the limit will see the driver being taken straight to court where the magistrate will determine the fine — and four points will be deducted.

 MASERU — Eighteen Lerotholi Polytechnic students on Friday pleaded with the High Court to order the school to remark the typing course they failed and ultimately saw them failing to graduate yesterday.

These students were pursuing a two-year Diploma in Office Administration and Management.

The final-year students would have graduated yesterday had they not failed the computer typing test which is a critical component of the diploma course.

A total of 25 out of 71 students failed the typing course.

But only 18 of those who failed decided to seek legal recourse, arguing they had been unfairly treated.

They made an urgent High Court application seeking the court to order the Lerotholi Polytechnic council to use the first-year scale to assess their performance after they failed the second year which ended in May.

They are complaining that they were not taught the subject in their first year of study.

The school says they should repeat the course and only graduate after passing it.

The students’ lawyer, Advocate Mosito Rabotsoa, on Friday pleaded with the High Court to order Lerotholi Polytechnic’s council to reconsider its decision.

The students, after their results were announced in June, asked the council to reconsider its decision.

They raised the same argument to the council that they should be treated as the first-year students in this particular subject.

They did not study computer typing because their lecturers said the institute did not have facilities to teach the subject.

“It is highly unfair and prejudicial for the applicants to be assessed using the second-year standard because it was their first time to do the course,” Rabotsoa said.

“We are not saying this honourable court should award marks. We are merely saying they should be assessed using the first-year scale.”

First-year students are expected to type not less than 20 words a minute to pass computer typing.

Second-year students should type at least 35 words a minute to reach the pass mark.

Rabotsoa said the students should be assessed using the typing speed of 20 words a minute because they were not introduced to the course in their first year of study.

Two lecturers were dismissed last year for not teaching the computer typing course at Lerotholi Polytechnic.

But they appealed against their dismissal saying they could not teach the course because the institute did not provide the required facilities.

Their case is still pending before the Directorate of Dispute Prevention and Resolution.

Judgment in the lecturers’ case is expected within a month.

Rabotsoa said the students should not suffer as a result of the institute’s failure to meet its obligations.

“The institute should have made sure that the applicants were taught the subject,” he said.

“They should not suffer only because the institute failed to comply with its own regulations.”

But Lerotholi Polytechnic’s lawyer, Advocate Zwelakhe Mda, said the students’ complaint was not genuine because other students had passed the subject.

“I am not surprised that the applicants withheld some information from the court that some students passed the same course,” Mda said.

“They were aware that we would be asking why they want to be treated differently.”

Mda said the High Court was not the right forum to deal with the students’ complaint about the results.

“The assessment function is solely vested with the senate not anybody else. Not even this honourable court. They are asking this court to ignore the body vested with such powers,” he said.

Mda said the decision by the Lerotholi Polytechnic’s council that the students should repeat was final.

“In essence they are asking this court to revise the institute’s regulations but I submit this court has no such powers,” he said.

Last year students who graduated with a Diploma in Office Administration and Management were not assessed on computer typing.

The reason was that the course had not been taught because of lack of facilities at the institute.

High Court judge ‘Maseforo Mahase will deliver judgment in the students’ case next month.

“I wanted to make a ruling as soon as possible but my diary is full,” Justice Mahase said.

“Judgment will be delivered on 18 October 2010.”

 MASERU — For the second time in the history of the prestigious Miss World beauty pageant, Lesotho will be represented.

Karabelo Mokoallo, 23, will raise the kingdom’s flag at this year’s edition in Sanya, China, on October 30.

Since ‘Makoena Mpinane Lepolesa became the first Mosotho to vie for the Miss World title in 2003, no one else from this country had entered the pageant.

Now Karabelo has followed ‘Makoena’s footsteps and will be among the 120 contestants expected for the 60th edition of the pageant next month.

The Butha-Buthe beauty rose to national prominence in 2009 when she won Lesotho’s biggest beauty pageant, Miss Vodacom PC FM.

The previous year she had scooped the Miss Lesotho Companies title.

“I have always wanted to participate in Miss World so when I received confirmation from them I didn’t think twice,” Karabelo told the Sunday Express.

“All I wanted was to be among the girls.”

“And moreover, Miss World is the most recognised international pageant so I knew it would be easier for my potential sponsors to recognise the pageant,” she added.

The 1.75m model had initially opted to enter the less-glamorous Miss Globe International, set for Turkey next month, after Miss World organisers delayed confirming her entry.

Karabelo said she was confident of making the Miss World finals, although she admitted it was not going to be a stroll in the park.

“Confidence will drag me to the finals,” she said.

“Competition is hard to determine at this point because all the girls I have seen on the Miss World website are very beautiful.

“But I hope to be among the 16 finalists on October 30 when the winner is announced.”

Karabelo said her biggest challenge however was to source sponsorship for her to make it to the beauty extravaganza.

“My budget is approximately M70 000 and I have limited time to find sponsorship,” she said.

“I am hoping local companies will be kind enough to help me put Lesotho’s modelling potential on the world map.”

“They need me to bring eight evening gowns, six smart suits and presents for charity shows during our stay in October,” she added.

“This is the most interesting experience of participating in a pageant.”

 MASERU — Fugitive crook Reatile Mochebelele, the former Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) chief convicted of receiving bribes, is trying to duck jail in Lesotho by seeking political asylum in South Africa.

The Lesotho government wants Mochebelele extradited from South Africa to serve the 10-year prison sentence slapped on him after he was convicted for soliciting bribes when he was Lesotho’s chief representative to the LHWP between 1986 and 2002.

Mochebelele was convicted for taking bribes from Lahmeyer International, a German company that was providing consultancy services to the LHWP during the construction of Katse Dam.

He received M1.2 million in bribes between 1988 and 1999.

The High Court sentenced him in absentia last December but since then he has been fighting efforts to extradite him from South Africa.

The Sunday Express can reveal that apart from fighting his extradition, Mochebelele has also applied for asylum in South Africa.

This paper could not establish the reasons that Mochobelele gave in his application for asylum.

Asylum is normally given to people who can justify that they are fleeing persecution in their countries.

In most cases people whose lives are endangered because of their lawful political activities in their countries can get political asylum status in other countries.

Conditions for granting political asylum status however differ from country to country.

Mochebelele made his application to South Africa’s Ministry of Home Affairs last December, a few days after he was sentenced.

His initial application was rejected but he is now planning to make an appeal against the decision, people close to the matter say.

Mochebelele’s attempts to get asylum came to light when Lesotho applied for his extradition in January this year.

The Directorate on Corruption and Economic Offences (DCEO), which investigated the case and is working closely with the Attorney-General’s Office on the extradition case, said it was aware that he was seeking political asylum.

The DCEO’s director for public education and corruption prevention, Litelu Ramokhoro, said they only found out about Mochebelele’s asylum application when they applied for his extradition.

He said their extradition application could not be processed because his political asylum case was still pending.

It is normal practice that when a person has applied for asylum they cannot be extradited until their application is finalised.

Ramokhoro said the extradition case has now been set for September 27 and 28 at the Randburg Magistrate’s Court in South Africa.

He said the date was set after the “South African authorities turned down his application (for asylum)”.

Ramokhoro however said the DCEO was “aware that there are a number of other possible avenues that he may explore” to get asylum.

According to South Africa’s regulations for refugees, Mochebelele can still get another chance to convince the authorities that he deserves to get asylum.

He can approach the Refugee Appeal Board, an independent tribunal which offers asylum seekers who have their applications rejected a second chance to prove their claims.

The board then interviews the applicant and responds within three months.

If that happens Lesotho’s extradition efforts might be stalled again.

Mochebelele’s accomplice, Letlafuoa Molapo, also a former LHWP delegate, is already serving his three-year jail sentence after last December’s conviction.

But the long arm of the law has been very slow to catch up with Mochebelele.

At one time it appeared Lesotho’s most prominent corruption trial had been closed when, on February 5 2008, High Court judge Thamsanqa Nomncongo delivered a “not guilty” verdict against the duo.

But their “freedom” was short-lived because a few months later Mochebelele and Molapo were back in court, this time round fending off the prosecution’s appeal against their acquittal.

The result was an astounding blow to the pair’s quest for freedom.

The Court of Appeal overturned their acquittal in October 2008 and instead found the duo guilty and tasked the High Court to deliver sentence.

In July last year the High Court sentenced Mochebelele to 10 years in prison or a M1 million fine.

Molapo was slapped with a two-year prison sentence or a M200 000 fine.

They paid the fines and for once it looked like the matter had been finally closed.

But the prosecution took the fight back to the Court of Appeal arguing that the sentences were too lenient and that the two should get custodial sentences.

The prosecution argued that the fines were not severe enough because the M1.2 million the two had paid as fines was equivalent to the bribes they had been convicted of receiving between 1989 and 1999.

The fines, the state argued, meant that Mochebelele and Molapo had merely paid off what they were found to have received in bribes.

The Court of Appeal agreed with the state and descended hard on the convicts.

The court ordered that not only should Mochebelele spend time in jail but he should also forfeit to the state M800 000 of the M1 million he had paid as a fine.

Molapo’s sentence was increased from the initial two years in prison to six although he had 18 months suspended on condition that he forfeited the M200 000 fine he had paid. 

A further 18 months were suspended on condition that he paid another M200 000 to the state.

 MASERU — The story of Reatile Mochebelele and Letlafuoa Molapo has been told countless times.

Many reports have recounted how the two, who represented Lesotho in the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), fell from grace.

Yet that story has rarely mentioned a little anecdote that exposes how hypocritical the two crooks were.

Way back in 2000, before they were found out, Mochebelele and Molapo were considered men of integrity.

Probably because of that perception, which unfortunately was wrong, they were called as witnesses to testify in the bribery and fraud cases against Masupha Sole, the former chief executive of the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA).

The two were the most senior officials of the commission that had oversight over the project for which the LHDA was the implementing authority.

Sole was in the dock facing charges of taking bribes worth M6 million from foreign companies that had been awarded contracts during the project.

He was facing 18 charges.

When they took the witness stand during Sole’s trial, Mochebelele and Molapo were impressive.

They told the court that Sole’s corrupt activities had damaged the reputation of the project and that of Lesotho.

Sole was convicted on 13 charges, 11 of fraud and two of bribery.

He was sentenced to 57 years in prison but was due to spend only 18 behind bars because most of the sentences ran concurrently.

Mochebelele and Molapo had nailed Sole.

It was to be another four years before the irony and hypocrisy of the whole episode came to light.

In 2006, the two were charged with taking bribes from Lahmeyer International, a German company that was providing consultancy services to the LHWP during the construction of Katse Dam.

The irony is that Lahmeyer International is one of the companies that had given Sole the bribes that eventually sank him.

As it would emerge, this is the same company that was also greasing the palms of Mochebelele and Molapo.

The two men had their hands in the same cookie jar as Sole.

Apparently they had also received the Lahmeyer International bribes during the same period that Sole got his sweetener.

The hypocrisy of it all is that the two men had the audacity to testify against Sole.

They also had the nerve to say Sole’s actions had damaged the country’s reputation.

That Sole’s actions had damaged the country’s reputation was true but the court would surely have preferred not to hear that from two crooks who were actually doing precisely the same thing.

But the irony does not end there.

Before the case started Mochebelele apparently manoeuvred his way to become one of the key witnesses against Lahmeyer International.

For a moment it looked like he was going to testify against the company that had bribed him.

But the tables were to be turned when Lahmeyer International struck a deal with the prosecution and agreed to testify against him instead.

At that moment Mochebelele moved from the witness box to the dock and thus began his protracted battle to avoid jail.

He seems to have succeeded so far because Lesotho is still battling to have him extradited from South Africa to serve his 10-year jail term in his home country.

Molapo is already doing his time probably in the same prison with Sole.

Mochebelele will probably meet Sole and Molapo if Lesotho’s extradition application is approved at the end of this month.

Another irony: because of his squeaky clean “reputation” and “credentials” amassed during his time at the LHWP, Mochebelele had been appointed a special advisor on water matters for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, better known only as Nepad.

Obviously the world didn’t know the real Mochebelele.