Open letter to the government of Lesotho

I am honored to have the opportunity to have your honorable audience in this deeply concerning letter that I am writing to you today.

Excellencies, my letter as I write it should not be regarded as anti-establishment and should not incite anything other than inviting all sports-loving Basotho to see the situation as it is.

Your Excellencies in Government and in the Opposition, you will recall that the Kingdom of Lesotho goes to the polls every five years to consolidate its status as a fully democratic state.

While over the past decade we have learned to live with the fact that Lesotho now appears to regularly and as a new norm renew its leadership mandate every two years. Yes, it’s a new normal.

We just passed the two-year mark by two days and we look forward to breaking the new normal record day after day.

As we celebrate the two years and two days since we went to our last polls as a country, we must remember as a nation what led to the current dispensation becoming what it is today. In other words, why the political parties have been forced by the electorate to be on their respective side of the parliamentary system.

I would like to remind you all that as of March 2022, you have all toured the Kingdom and some of you have even gone beyond the borders of the Kingdom to the Republic to woo the electorate.

I had the opportunity to read at least four manifestos from major parties. All four had described so creatively how they would breathe new life into the sports club. The thorny issue was Setsoto Stadium, which had just been banned by CAF and FIFA from hosting official international matches.

Allow me to remind you once again that all parties have said something to the effect that Likuena would no longer play its official home matches on foreign territory. Two years and two days later, Likuena is still playing and playing its official matches on foreign soil and most recently was forced to host Africa’s best national team, Morocco, in Agadir, Morocco.

Likuena continues to organize competitions in South Africa.

Likuena is the ultimate mandate of the Lesotho Football Association. The association’s mandate concerns three matters:
1. The regulation of football,
2. Football development and holding competitions,
3. Compiling national teams and participating in international football activities and events.

After October 7, 2022, Likuena will still play at various locations on foreign soil. It is not only Likuena who is feeling the wrath of the government and opposition’s lack of political will. The Lesotho Football Association will no longer receive funding from the FIFA Forward 3.0 project, designed to enable LEFA to run the under-20 boys and girls national competitions, run the women’s national competition, build football pitches in at to build at least three other districts and football. offices in three other districts, renovation of existing technical centres, Maputsoe and Mohale’s Hoek.

These are just the few of the many projects that LEFA and the Football Association are biased and deprived of due to the stance taken by both the government and the opposition regarding the Setsoto Stadium.

Although the Honorable Minister responsible for sport has talked about building many more sports facilities, I think in any case he is inviting criticism based on the reality that it has taken four governments, four ministers including him, and that still nothing concrete and tangible has happened. seen by the sports club.

Hopes were raised when a yellow plant was spotted at Setsoto Stadium in preparation for a hastily organized national celebration to mark the bicentenary.

The government and the opposition, essentially parliament, have not felt the need to fund sports in the Kingdom. The LSRC receives a paltry €6 million per financial year to provide grants to more than 30 national federations and to run their activities annually.

You don’t need rocket science to understand that €6 million is not even a drop in the ocean to organize sports and recreational activities in Lesotho, let alone participate in the All Africa Games, regional games and the Olympic Games.

But what is the effect of this suspension of the sport? Firstly, the message that the government and the opposition are sending to the youth is that they should seek alternative activities, crime, drug and substance abuse, gangsterism and many other social vices.

It seems like sports are just a way for MPs to test their relevance in their constituencies. Wait until the holidays come around, Christmas and Easter, then you will know that MPs exist; a tournament here, donations there and media personnel guided to cover these events, to stay dry and high at the end of the events.

My Excellencies, I have this quick question for all of you: How do you feel when a local sports club is forced to spend millions in foreign, well-endowed economies?

Picture this: the DCEO is on the hunt for billions of Maloti siphoned off by Basotho nationals over the past decade. Every week, headlines appear in our local newspapers about ordinary Basotho who have had the audacity to rob Lesotho of millions of maloti. There has been no successful prosecution of the perpetrators. Why is it like this? Is it because these expeditions involve some in high positions, to the extent that obtaining successful prosecutions is merely a pipe dream?

My Excellencies, I would like to share with you the fate of some patriotic supporters of the national teams, people who have organized themselves and call themselves the Lesotho Supporters Association. The members of this organization are sports-loving Basotho, who are part of the workforce at the lowest levels, or are small-scale entrepreneurs, while others are unemployed. But their love for Likuena remains unwavering.

Allow me to give you a heartbreaking scenario here: There is a sister of ours who has a stall near the Maseru City Council office in Seapoint. She sells fruits and vegetables. This sister of mine has attended all the matches that Likuena and Mehalalitoe have played in South Africa.

She’s been to Dobsonville Stadium in Soweto, she’s been to Orlando Stadium in Soweto, she’s been to Toyota Stadium in Bloemfontein and she’s been to Moses Mabhida Stadium.

That’s about 10 rides if I’m not mistaken. Each trip, except the one to Bloemfontein, cost her no less than a thousand maloti if you consider bus fares, gate fees and meals. She would have just spent fifty maloti for each of those matches.

Now imagine 200 of these supporters handing out a thousand maloti each for each trip. In simple arithmetic this is almost €200,000 million per trip and given that there have been almost 10 of these trips, this would mean an erosion of over €2 million million from football alone, which has boosted the South African economy have to give.

Now add to that the cost of hosting these events. LEFA distributes more than €1.2 million for every game it organizes in South Africa. Consider that there have been ten such competitions, this easily reaches the $14 million that LEFA has pumped into the South African economy.

The above figures do not include the amount that LEFA spends per year on the six country teams without government support. To complicate the scenario further, we must consider that other national federations that are part of the LSRC also have to spend huge amounts of money to represent Lesotho.

My Excellencies, why will the government with its subservience deny Basotho living in the diaspora the opportunity to represent their country? How come one person or a group of friends is given the honor of deciding who is a Mosotho? Why is there no committee to make a decision?

Many good Basotho footballers want to represent Lesotho but their desire is at the mercy of a few people who decide such matters depending on their mood. How are we supposed to take silverware home if it depends on some political activists and the government won’t help?

My Excellencies, are you happy with this scenario? Does this make you feel proud? Is this what you always wanted to achieve? If the election were a year away, would you cheer for such situations?

My Excellencies, why should South Africa benefit from your collective lack of political will when it comes to sports and recreational activities? How long will it take for you to accept that sport can be a contributing factor to the recovery of Lesotho’s economy after the Covid pandemic?

My Excellencies, the idea that sport is for hooligans clearly shows how alienated you have been and continue to be. The British government, the government of Lesotho which proudly informs us of the Westminster parliamentary model, has recently shown its interest in sport by introducing bills aimed at improving the game in Britain.

And you?

Once again, My Excellencies, I don’t mean to ruffle feathers, but this issue has gone on for far too long. It is something that you, as parents, have to see that you set priorities for.

You can’t fix the mafia groups if you don’t have an alternative for them to engage with. You create the mafia groups when ordinary people do not have sports and recreational facilities and opportunities.

Think about this, My Excellencies, the future of our children should not be eroded while you watch from the sidelines. Please give us small talk and big action.

Until we meet again.

Shalom.

Mokhosi Mohapi