IEC Director of Election Letholetseng Ntsiiki
’Marafaele Mohloboli
THE Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) is yet to receive the M248 million it requested from the government to hold the 3 June 2017 snap general elections.
However, the electoral body has signed a warrant to receive the money from the Central Bank of Lesotho (CBL), with such transfers usually taking up to three days to process.
IEC Director of Elections Dr Letholetseng Ntsiki, yesterday told the Lesotho Times that the warrant served as an affirmation by the government of the allocation of funds for the holding of the polls.
The development comes two weeks after the IEC appealed to government to urgently avail M150 million needed to commence preparations for the elections which are just two months away.
The IEC needs to undertake a number of preparatory activities ahead of the elections such as hiring of temporary staff and voter education among others.
“We have finally signed the warrant for all the money that we had asked for to conduct the elections,” Dr Ntsiki said.
“The warrant is an affirmation of the allocation of funds. With this development, we can safely say the elections will be held as planned.”
She said the warrant initiated the bureaucratic process of transferring the money for the polls.
“The warrant has a transfer number for the funds into our coffers. The transfer is being processed by the Central Bank.
“The fact that a warrant has been signed is an assurance that there will be funding for elections. On our part we are going to deliver, since we had already started with all that was expected of us.”
A CBL official who requested anonymity yesterday told this paper such a transfer usually took one to three days to process.
“I cannot tell you the exact status of that transaction, but what I can say is any transfer usually takes a maximum of three days,” the official said.
The elections, the third in just five years, follow the dissolution of parliament on 6 March 2017 by King Letsie III on the advice of Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili.
The premier’s seven-party coalition government lost a 1 March 2017 parliamentary no-confidence vote prompted by a four-party opposition alliance.
The alliance, which consists of the All Basotho Convention, Alliance of Democrats (AD), Basotho National Party (BNP) and the Reformed Congress of Lesotho had proposed AD leader Monyane Moleleki to replace Dr Mosisili upon the success of the no-confidence vote.
The opposition bloc has since argued that the government cannot legally allocate the M248 million required for the elections after Finance Minister Tlohang Sekhamane failed to table budgetary estimates in the National Assembly for the 2017/8 financial year in February.
The opposition had disrupted Mr Sekhamane arguing that the government no longer had the legitimacy to pass the budget because they had lost their parliamentary numerical supremacy.
The bloc has also “strongly advised” the accountant-general and chief accounting officers of various government ministries against utilising public funds beyond the end of March. Lesotho’s financial years begin in April.
They cite Section 113 (b) of the constitution, which stipulates that: “no sums shall be so authorised to be withdrawn to meet expenditure on any head of expenditure in that financial year if no sums had been voted to meet expenditure on that head of expenditure in respect of the preceding financial year…”
However, the government has stressed it has the powers to bankroll the elections without parliamentary approval.
Dr Mosisili recently dismissed the opposition’s assertion saying the 28 February 2015 elections were also held without parliamentary approval.
Prominent lawyer Advocate Haae Phoofolo King’s Counsel and BNP deputy leader Joang Molapo have since challenged the dissolution of parliament in the constitutional court, arguing that the Council of State was not convened to advise the monarch in light of the proposal by the opposition to replace Dr Mosisili with Mr Moleleki.
BNP spokesperson Machesetsa Mofomobe and political activist Mohato Seleke have also filed an urgent constitutional court application seeking to interdict Finance Minister Tlohang Sekhamane from withdrawing from the main bank account of the government starting on 31 March 2017.
The cases were consolidated by a five-member panel of judges on Monday and set are to be heard tomorrow.