Moroke Sekoboto
THE Ministry of Environment and Forestry is grappling with a severe budget shortfall and staffing crisis after a court ordered the reinstatement or compensation of public servants who were unfairly dismissed in 2022.
With a liability exceeding M25 million now hanging over the ministry’s national parks operations, the budget controller had allegedly directed that the debt be absorbed into the upcoming 2026/27 budget cycle to comply with the court ruling.
Appearing before Parliament’s Natural Resources Cluster Committee on Friday, the ministry’s Director of Planning, Sebothama Moshoeshoe, said it was facing a critical financial and human resource challenge within its national parks operations.
The current administration, which came into power in November 2022, had dismissed 48 employees who were believed to have been irregularly recruited during the final days of the previous administration.
A circular dated 15 December 2022 from the Ministry of Public Service had ordered the dismissal of personnel deemed to have been “illegally employed” by the previous coalition government.
However, the affected employees successfully challenged their dismissals in the Labour Court, which ruled that the termination of their contracts was unfair.
As a result, the ministry is now legally obliged to either reinstate the workers or compensate them.
Mr Moshoeshoe said the financial implications of the ruling were significant.
“The challenge we face is that we have staff shortages in our parks, and the employees who were dismissed took the matter to court. The court ruled that they were unfairly dismissed,” he said.
“We have been ordered to either reinstate them or pay them compensation. We now owe them more than M25 million, which is not provided for in our current operational budget.”
He said the ministry had engaged the budget controller on the matter, who instructed that the debt be incorporated into the upcoming national budget.
“We wanted the committee to take note that we are facing this financial obligation which was not initially planned for,” Mr Moshoeshoe added.
He indicated that some of the affected employees would be reinstated while others would receive settlement payments, which include back pay covering the period since their dismissal.
The ministry would therefore have to settle the accumulated arrears while also accommodating the workers’ future salaries should they be reinstated.
Despite the financial challenges, Mr Moshoeshoe told the committee that the ministry had recorded notable achievements in revenue generation from its national parks.
At Tšehlanyane National Park, revenue collections reached M80 680, surpassing the initial target of M70 000.
He attributed the increase largely to facility rentals by workers involved in the construction of the Polihali tunnel under the Lesotho Highlands Water Project.
The Tšehlanyane collections, together with revenue from Bokong Nature Reserve and Liphofung Nature Reserve, generated a combined M442 000 for the Northern Region, exceeding the targeted M400 000 by M42 000.
Mr Moshoeshoe said the growth was also driven by the influx of visitors associated with the Polihali Dam project.
In the Southern Region, Sehlabathebe Nature Reserve in Qacha’s Nek recorded revenue of M55 100, exceeding its M45 000 target by M10 100.
He said although the original target had been modest, the unexpected surge in visitors had made it difficult to accurately forecast future revenue targets.
Turning to the plastic levy, Mr Moshoeshoe said that although the levy fell under the mandate of the Revenue Services Lesotho (RSL), the ministry had intensified public awareness campaigns to improve compliance and enhance revenue collection.
Meanwhile, the ministry’s Principal Secretary, Maphakamile Hoohlo, stressed the importance of expanding protected catchment areas and strengthening land management practices.
Ms Hoohlo said the ministry was working to improve vegetative cover by scaling up the planting of exotic, indigenous and fruit trees, while also enhancing water harvesting and conservation initiatives.
She also said the ministry was mandated to develop water harvesting infrastructure at both household and community levels and to create temporary employment opportunities through the rehabilitation of degraded landscapes.
Natural Resources Cluster Committee chairperson, Lephoi Makara, urged the ministry to strictly adhere to its approved budget.
He cautioned against the frequent practice of virement — the reallocation of funds from one budget line to another — and stressed that allocated funds should be used strictly for their intended purposes.
“We allocate the budget, but you constantly vary and revise it for other uses,” Mr Makara said.
He advised that if the ministry exhausts its allocation, it should seek support through a contingency fund request submitted by the responsible minister rather than altering the approved budget structure.