Mohloai Mpesi
PARLIAMENT has been urged to fast-track crucial outstanding laws required to operationalise the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)’s development Compact II failing which Lesotho risks losing the lucrative US$300million (M6,8 billion) funding under the project.
The plea was made by the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA)-Lesotho’s chief executive officer, Mannana Phalatse, during a meeting with National Assembly portfolio committees last Thursday. She met with the Social, Economic Development as well as the Law and Public Safety cluster committees.
The meeting was intended to exhort parliament to pass the laws before the March 2024 deadline by when Compact 11 should be operationalised.
Ms Phalatse told the committees that Lesotho would fail to secure funding under the development Compact if outstanding Bills were not passed before March next year.
The outstanding laws are the Occupational Health and Safety Bill, 2022, the Millennium Challenge Account-Lesotho II Authority Bill, 2022, Millennium Challenge Account Lesotho Authority (Winding up and Repeal) Bill, 2022, Harmonization of the Rights of Customary Widows with Legal Capacity of Married Persons Bill, 2022, and the Counter Domestic Violence Bill, 2022.
Some of the laws had been passed by the 10th parliament last year. They were nullified by the Constitutional Court after it outlawed a state of emergency through which that parliament had been recalled to pass them. They were reinstated and passed by the 11th parliament after its election in October 2022.
But the Court of Appeal has nullified that process too saying the 11th parliament cannot just adopt and pass bills that it did not originate.
As such, Ms Phalatse urged the three committees to swiftly work on the Bills and reintroduce them in the House before March 2024 for Lesotho to get the Compact funding.
That effectively means that parliament has only three months within which to revisit the laws.
However, it is uncertain as to when the legislature will resume from its year end break as it was adjourned indefinitely. It also remains uncertain whether anything positive will be achieved amid the ongoing fights in the National Assembly between the government and the opposition.
Finance and Development Planning Minister, Dr Ret?elisitsoe Matlanyane, had last month expressed serious misgivings about the failure to conclude the reforms process saying it would cost the country the much needed funding under the Compact II programme, earmarked to boost various sectors of the economy, boost job creation and alleviate poverty.
“We know that Bills pass before your committees before they can be enacted into law, so we called this meeting to brief you about this grant and its conditions precedent so that when the Bills come before you, they should swiftly pass….,” Ms Phalatse said.
“It is important to pass those bills on time because when the prescribed… period to implement the compact lapses, the Americans are going to walk away with the remaining money….
“More than half of the population of Lesotho is comprised of women and girls of which our current system of inheritance excludes them. It is not going to be easy for Lesotho to fight poverty when they (women and girls) are institutionally excluded from getting assets such as land to inherit from their parents,” Ms Phalatse said, emphasizing the need for the reform of inheritance laws as required under Compact II.
Meanwhile, social cluster portfolio committee chairperson, Mokhothu Makhalanyane, said although they were left with limited time within which to have passed the Bills, he believed it was possible “to have the bills passed before the deadline”.
“It is a big challenge to endeavour passing these Bills within such a short space of time. But with the cooperation we have right now with the relevant committees, it will not be such a big problem,” Mr Makhalanyane said.
He said for the Bills to pass, government and opposition legislators would have to stop their feuding and work together in the national interest.
He added that the Bills were not as complex as some of the reform clauses that might need a two-thirds majority to pass.
“Right now, we have to summon the relevant ministries so that they will tell us how quickly they think they can finish the drafts of the Bills, so that when the parliament resumes, a big portion of the work should have already been done,” Mr Makhalanyane said.
“The law stipulates that when a Bill has been tabled in parliament, it is given 10 days in the committees. So, if they (Bills) are tabled in February, it means they can still be enacted before the March deadline. I think it is possible.”