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…say that lack of resources is hampering their operations
…calls for full autonomy to be more effective
Mpesi Harvester
Lesotho’s watchdog lamented inadequate state funding, which they said prevented its institutions from carrying out their mandates effectively.
These agencies, whose main responsibilities include curbing corruption, auditing government accounts, monitoring corruption and holding people accountable when necessary, say their meager annual budgets are insufficient to accomplish the daunting tasks they are tasked with.
It all comes as the Directorate General of Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEO), the Office of the Auditor General and the Office of the Ombudsman said this week that they are chronically under-resourced, causing many important tasks to fall by the wayside.
They said this undermined the effectiveness of their offices and further called for giving them autonomy to act independently.
The offices expressed the same view during a meeting with the National Assembly in Maseru on Tuesday morning.
The purpose of the meeting was to establish a mechanism for cooperation between these offices and the legislative body, as they are all mandated to report to Parliament.
The event was sponsored by the European Union. The event was attended by National Assembly Speaker Tlohang Sekhamane, Deputy Speaker Tṧepang Tṧita-Mosena, National Assembly Secretary Fine Maema (KC), and Chairman of the Parliamentary Cluster Portfolio Committee Mokhothu Makhalanyane.
Representatives of the watchdog included Auditor General Mathabo Makenete, Ombudsman Adv Tlotliso Polaki and DCEO Director of Public Education and Prevention of Corruption Litelu Ramokhoro.
During her speech, Ms. Mackenette shared with attendees how her office was unable to fully carry out its duties “due to the low budget allocated.”
According to Ms. Makenette, due to the limited budget of her office, they can only complete 20% of the audit work of government ministries, departments, agencies, judiciary and parastatals.
“We’ve only done 20 per cent of the audit we should have done. We’ve only scratched the surface,” Ms Mackenett said.
Ms Mackenette claimed her office had been stagnant for the past four years and funding had never increased despite requests for more resources.
Ms. Makenette added that her office’s budget does not have to be controlled by the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning. She believes the meagre resources allocated to oversight bodies is a strategy to prevent them from carrying out their duties effectively.
“There may be deliberate misallocation of resources to these institutions so that they cannot properly carry out their duties…,” Ms. Mackenette said, while insisting that these institutions should be given autonomy to control their budgets, which cannot be managed through their parent departments.
“If we had full capacity, we would find there is a huge waste (of state resources). I think (the underfunding) is designed to make these institutions underperform.
“If we can do our best, the level of service in this country will be greatly improved. I can guarantee that.”
She continued: “At this point in time, we really don’t think it’s in the right interest for the Treasury to decide on the budget of the oversight body.”
Ms Makenette said if the agencies had adequate budgets and were properly managed by themselves, more would be done to ensure on-the-ground services for the Basotho people.
“It was so painful because even after submitting the budget, we didn’t get the chance to go anywhere and present our budget. The Ministry of Finance would decide to give us some stupid budget that had nothing to do with what we submitted,” she said.
She further complained that her office was placed under the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning and strongly stressed that “it was not appropriate to work under their audit”.
The Auditor General’s Office is located in the Finance Building of the Government Complex, where several government departments are housed.
“The word ‘independent’ should lead us to say that the budget of the Auditor General is managed by an independent office outside the Ministry of Finance.
“This is a total disaster. How can such an important office be subsumed under one ministry. We are not even as advanced as the Ombudsman or the DCEO. We are totally subsumed under the Ministry of Finance,” she said firmly.
“If you want to ask about our plans, you have to go through the finance minister.”
As for Attorney Pollacki, she shared how her office is “bound and consumed within the system of government,” which prevents them from conducting extensive investigations into certain complaints filed against the office.
She said a lack of autonomy hindered their work, and she also believed that the government was deliberately controlling their behavior so that they could not effectively and thoroughly perform their supervisory duties.
“The Office of the Ombudsman should enjoy full operational, functional and statutory independence and should report directly to Parliament on its work,” said Adv Polaki.
“However, we found that in practice things were very different, especially in terms of administration. The lack of full autonomy was a challenge in itself, as it affected even the level of agility we were supposed to achieve.
“We are unable to carry out the activities we planned in a timely manner mainly because we rely heavily on the government for funding. Whenever there are resource challenges, it means that the work we should be doing is hampered.”
Adv Polaki added: “Some of the investigations were very deep and extensive. But we could not conduct them because we were restricted. We did not have enough resources and we ended up shying away from those investigations that we should have conducted.”
She said the Ombudsman’s office should be “restructured or reorganized” to operate completely independently from government “so that we can do our job with the efficiency that we need.”
“We are still limited because we are stuck in the government system. There are a lot of complex investigations that need to be handled but we cannot intervene because we are underfunded,” said Adv Polaki.
“We need to get enough budget and that can only be done by Parliament. I just came back from a conference where over 200 countries sent monitors. We all cried about the same thing. We have limited budget allocations.
“I don’t know if the government does this on purpose, because they know that if the government gives too little money, a lot of things can’t be done. Unfortunately, most of the time people interpret it as, when you dig into these issues and expose corruption, it reflects badly on the current government.”
After listening carefully to the presentations by Ms. Makenette and Mr. Pollaki, Mr. Sekman said it was time for the oversight bodies to stop working in silos and instead collaborate and work together for “mutual benefit.”
The Speaker said the Legislature has an obligation to monitor the use of government funds appropriated to the executive branch to ensure that the funds are “used in the public interest.”
“MPs give money to the people. They say, ‘Take this money, use it’ for the welfare of the people. Sometimes, the money is not used 100% for the welfare and comfort of the people. Sometimes, the money is diverted elsewhere, sometimes, the money is blatantly misappropriated, stolen. So, MPs and watchdog bodies must work together to ensure that the executive is held accountable…” he said.
“Parliament is home to the Human Rights Commission, the Ombudsman, the Auditor General, the Public Accounts Committee, the Law Reform Commission. All of these work for Parliament, but they do not report jointly.
“Then some people tell you that the DCEO works very hard. I don’t believe it. The DCEO is set up to monitor the executives so that they don’t eat the money. But the DCEO is responsible for the executives.”
He added: “You are employed by the minister and you have to monitor the same minister? That is the worst thing I have ever heard. Make the DCEO report to Parliament because Parliament’s job is to monitor the executive because Parliament has no access to resources. It allocates all resources to the executive and it is in Parliament’s best interest to ensure that the executive does not divert funds.”
“That is why the biggest target of attack from the parliament should be the DCEO to ensure that it takes effective measures.”
The meeting was postponed before Mr Ramohoro delivered a speech on behalf of the DCEO.
Mr. Sekman said he had to attend to an urgent matter and directed that the meeting be rescheduled as he wanted to participate in the discussion.
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