When Sam Matekane took the oath of office three years ago today, he came armed with a to-do list that looked like a reformer’s dream. It was neat, numbered, and ambitious and now, three years later, it reads more like a catalogue of how to scam the electorate.
He promised to sign performance contracts with ministers and principal secretaries within 30 days, and to make them public. No such contracts have seen the light of day. The idea of accountability through publication quietly vanished.
He pledged to develop tools for performance reporting across government and to create a system that allows citizens to monitor and rate public service delivery. Instead, citizens are left with potholes, unpaid contractors, and ghost reforms.
He vowed to deploy district administrators and councils under a new framework of accountability. Three years later, most districts still operate under the same patronage-driven dysfunction that predated his government.
A plan to cut unnecessary spending on government fleets and fuel consumption was due within 100 days. Yet official convoys still snake through Maseru, sirens wailing, guzzling taxpayers’ fuel as if the economy were booming.
There was to be a strategy to capacitate the chieftainship for better governance. None exists. Chiefs still operate without resources, training, or clarity on their roles in development.
He ordered that all government vehicles be accounted for within 100 days and redistributed to local authorities. That too, was forgotten. Government vehicles remain misused, untracked, and in some cases, missing.
Matekane also called for budget monitoring of all capital projects, action on the Auditor General’s R6.1 billion in queries, and a crime control programme within 15 days of taking office. None of these deadlines were met, and not one meaningful report has been made public.
And in one of the more dramatic pledges, he vowed to establish a corruption and embezzlement amnesty programme…a curious idea that disappeared as quickly as it was announced.
Matekane’s inaugural plan was filled with the language of urgency: 15 days, 30 days, 100 days. But three years later, it’s the 1000th day that tells the story. Most of what was promised remains either unfinished, unreported, or forgotten.
If this list were a report card, it would read like the very performance contract he once demanded; unfulfilled, unmonitored, and unpublished.
We know that you’ve forgotten the promises he made, we have compiled a list so that you don’t have to struggle;
1. Prepare my performance contract and those of Honourable Ministers and ensure that they are signed in 30 days. Then make those contracts public.
2. Prepare and sign performance contracts with Principal Secretaries in 30 days, and make those contracts public.
3. Develop tools and a standardised system of performance reporting and reflection for the whole of government, including District Administrators and Local Authorities in the first 100 days.
4. Develop a system through which citizens can monitor and report on the performance of the public sector and through which their inputs can be recorded and responded to, in the first 100 days.
5. Use appropriate public service legislation and policies and deploy relevant public officials to the authority of District Administrators, and District, Urban and Community Councils in 100 days, and make sure that District Administrators and Councils are accountable for the government’s programme of action and service delivery in their respective districts.
6. Develop and implement a plan to cut unnecessary government spending on fleet management and fuel consumption in the first 100 days.
7. Develop a plan of how government should capacitate the Institution of Chieftainship for improved service delivery, accountability and good governance, targeting chiefs who serve their communities on a daily basis for twenty-four hours.
8. In 100 days take stock of all government vehicles, rationalise them and provide each local authority in Lesotho with at least one vehicle to enable them to conduct the business of government.
9. In 30 days, provide a report on budget monitoring for all ongoing capital projects. The reports should clearly state what projects should be closed down, which should continue and which should be redesigned for maximum impact.
10. Develop a plan for improving aid and donor coordination and organise a meeting for my office with all partners and donors in 15 days.
11. Pay outstanding allowances for all village health workers in 100 days.
12. Develop a reporting plan for all state-owned enterprises in 30 days and make the reporting plan public.
13. Organise a meeting between my office and all District Administrators and Council Chairpersons in 15 days.
14. Organise a meeting between my office and all Media Institutions in Lesotho and Civil Society Organisations in 15 days.
15. Take action on the 6.1 billion indicated in the Auditor General’s queries and make the action public in 15 days.
16. Develop, publish and implement a crime control programme in the first 15 days.
17. Establish and publicise a corruption, theft and embezzlement amnesty programme in 30 days.
18. In 30 days prepare a report on all companies in which Government has shares, explaining which companies are paying their due dividends and which are not and why.
19. In 30 days prepare a list of all people that owed money by Government and make your recommendations accordingly.
20. In 60 days identify all areas of public financial wastage and make your recommendations accordingly.
21. Expedite the successful completion of the National reforms agenda.
