By Caswell Tlali & ’Mantoetse Maama
MASERU — Dairy farmers, who have been at loggerheads with the Lesotho National Dairy Board (LNDB) for eight years, say they will lobby MPs to rescind an Act of parliament to allow greater autonomy in the running of their affairs.
The chairperson of the Maapara-Kobo Dairy Farmers Association, Tšeliso Tšenoli, told the Sunday Express yesterday that farmers were now pinning their hopes on parliament after their pleadings for help from the government over the years fell on deaf ears.
He said farmers had realised that they were fighting against a bigger force they could not dislodge alone.
But instead of giving up the fight completely, Tšenoli said they were changing tactics by taking the battle to parliament to take on the Lesotho National Dairy Board (LNDB), the Lesotho Dairy Products (Pty) Ltd and Denmar Dairies (Pty) Ltd.
“We are no longer going to claim any shares from the LDP because we are fully aware that is not a winnable war,” Tšenoli said.
“We are also not going to hold any talks with the LNDB because by so doing we will be dealing with LDP and Denmar directly, whom we are complaining about.”
He added: “What we need now is for parliament to rescind an Act that established the LNDB so that dairy farmers can run the industry without frustrations caused by the LNDB.”
The farmers, who claim ownership of the LDP, have for years been locked in a bitter fight with the LDP management. The LDP management enjoys the strong backing of the Lesotho National Dairy Board (LNDB).
The LDP is the producer of Maluti Maid bottled fresh and sour milk that targets the bottom end of the market.
The LDP, a company established by the Lesotho government with the help of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in 1987, buys milk from farmers and processes it for distribution to local shops.
The LDP buys with credit and signs cheques for farmers after it has sold milk and collected money from the shops.
Farmers say CIDA passed its shares to their associations when it closed its mission in the country but the LDP management and the LNDB have rejected the claims in the past.
The farmers have also complained that the LDP management and LNDB were collaborating in corrupt activities basing their arguments on findings of a forensic investigation sanctioned by former finance minister Timothy Thahane.
Dairy farmers have since 2005 fought with the LNDB and the LDP over what they say is corruption within the two organisations.
The LNDB was established by the Ministry of Agriculture in 1991 to prescribe standards of production, storage, packaging, processing and distribution of dairy products.
The LNDB is also vested with powers to issue permits to companies that produce, process and distribute dairy products.
The Thahane-sanctioned investigation found that the LNDB, in a clear conflict of interest, was a shareholder in the LDP.
The LDP is a company which is supposed to get a permit from the LNDB to process milk.
The farmers complain that the LNDB deliberately barred some of them from entering the milk processing business because they would be potential competitors of the LDP.
Farmers also complained that the LNDB deliberately caused their businesses to fail so that more milk and other dairy products could be imported into the Kingdom because it collects a 2.15 percent levy on imports.
The LNDB, whose business according to the law is to regularise the dairy industry, is also accused of lowering the price of milk to below the production costs so that more milk and milk products could be imported.
In 2011, dairy farmers wrote to the cabinet seeking the intervention of the then agriculture minister, Lesole Mokoma, and his assistant Rammotsi Lehata.
The two did not take any action against the LNDB.
The late agriculture minister Rakoro Phororo also failed to deal with the farmers’ grievances against the LNDB.
Early last year former agric minister Ralechate ’Mokose set up a task team to deal with farmers’ grievances but nothing changed.
The task team came after prominent dairy farmers warned that they were on the verge of selling their dairy cows because they were running at a loss.
Many farmers are now selling milk directly into the public market bypassing the LDP. This however is in violation of health regulations.
Health and hygiene regulations require that a farmer should take milk to a licenced processor before it can reach the market and the only qualified processor is the LDP.
The farmers also petitioned the former trade minister Popane Lebesa to intervene after the Thahane sanctioned forensic audit by a South African firm, Gobodo Forensic, said the LNDB management was not cooperative with its investigations.
The Gobodo Forensic’s final report, released in February 2010, revealed that the LNDB and the LDP were mismanaged.
Investigators say they had been unable to have access to some crucial documents that would show how the two bodies were managed because their leaders blocked them from gaining access to them.
For example, they say they were not privy to the accounting records of the LNDB because the management “refused to grant us access to such documentation”.
They say they did not have accounting records “supporting any income and expenditure. We also did not obtain access to the LNDB’s bank statements.”
Gobodo Forensic says in terms of audited financial statements, the levy income of the LNDB was M1 222 480 in 2006 and M1 258 181 in 2007.This, according to investigators, constituted 98 percent of the LNDB’s total income for 2006 and 2007.
“There are allegations that the amount of levies collected was understated by the LNDB and that the LNDB could be abusing the levies collected,” reads the Gobodo report.
Tšenoli said it is against this backdrop that they have no option but to ask parliament to repeal the Act establishing the LNDB or else there will be no end to farmers’ suffering.
“We have full evidence that agric ministers in the past were not keen to solve these problems and also we do not have any guarantee that the present minister intends solving them,” he said.
Soon after ascending into power Prime Minister Thomas Thabane instructed Agriculture Minister Litšoane Litšoane to urgently resolve the impasse between dairy farmers, LNDB and the LDP.
There is still no progress over a year later.
The LDP general manager, Malefetsane Samosamo, said he denied Gobodo access to his office because “Gobodo came through the window”, meaning that it was not properly appointed.
“They were called by Thahane after meeting with them at a hotel,” Samosamo said.
“I’m not interested in whatever information they wrote,” he said.
Thahane said Samosamo is making serious allegations against him.
“I consider it a blatant lie,” Thahane said.
“It is a serious indictment against me. I don’t even know those people and I couldn’t have met them at a party or a hotel as it is alleged.”
Thahane said the probe against LDP “was properly launched and the report was handed to the Finance Ministry”.
Efforts to contact Litšoane and LNDB CEO Selematsela Montši were not successful at the time of going to print last night.
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