By Neo Kolane
Leaders of the students of institutions of higher learning have fired a broadside at development planning minister Selibe Mochoboroane and the National Manpower Development Secretariat (NMDS) Flory Rakeketsi, and called for their dismissal.
The irked students’ leaders have accused the pair of incompetence following the National University of Lesotho (NUL) violent unrest that claimed the life of a student when the police fired live ammunition to quell the incident.
A student Kopano Makutoane was shot and later died when the police last month waged a raid to stop the strike over unpaid students’ allowances by the NMDS.
This has prompted the higher learning institutions’ Students Representatives’ Council (SRCs) presidents to throw a salvo to Mochoboroane and the NMDS management calling for their departure from office.
This week, NUL SRC president Tumo Tsanyane told theReporter that the school has consistently been plunged into allowances dispute with the students as a result of delayed payments by the NMDS amid agreements with them to be financially sponsored by the secretariat.
Tsanyane said every August the students have to go on a strike demanding to get the money “but this time around there was an untimely death of a brother and that death hinged on a dispute that was not addressed contrary to the contract the students have with NMDS.”
He explained that Mochoboroane is incompetence as he could not immediately resolve the delay for payment of allowances to an “extend that a person can die because he said that he does not know of the M450 that was meant to be given to the students.”
He coughed out: “As for the minister, he should go because if Mochoboroane vowed that he would take care of the needs of institutions and up to this date his officer’s continue to betray him at his watch.
“We have stated that we are giving him two months to call it a day because we will be reopening in September or August and we will be back at school.”
He minced no words to suggest that the students stood by their word “because since the NMDS was under the reign of Rakeketsi we have been undergoing perilous situation as allowances were not being paid in time.”
He wondered why should that officer (Rakeketsi) continue to be kept in office if renewing contracts is a problem.
Adding his weight to Tsanyane’s sentiments, the president of SRC at Botho University, Bongane Debese, said the NMDS management has regularly been warned of such disturbing delays to fork out allowances for the students. He said under the watchful eye of Rakeketsi, students have experienced same fate seemingly with no end in sight.
“As a president, I share the same sentiments because there are many strikes that happen because of delay of to issue lump sums, making it obvious that it is not something that will be solved anytime soon.
“From July to May next year, there will still be delays for students to get their monies,” Debese said.
Commenting on the issue, the SRC president of Lerotholi Polytechnic, Makatjane Letlaka, explained that Mochoboroane has a soft spot for students and those who supervise Rakeketsi should be fired while sparing her.
The principal secretary of the ministry of development planning, Sello Tṧukulu, has in turn accused Tsanyane of being “confused and without any direction.”
Tṧukulu said it was the police who shot and killed the now laid to rest student, adding that his ministry was not responsible for the control of the police. Who are under s different leadership.
“I feel pity for Tsanyane if the issues involving a deceased learner is being brought to the fore of minister Mochoboroane who is in charge of development planning,
“Tsanyane is being used as a tool by other politicians because he did not say anything about the commissioner of police nor the minister of police,” Tṧukulu argued.
When commenting last week about the fatal shooting of Makutoane, the Transformation Resource Centre’s (TRC) director Tsikoane Peshoane observed that “the same problems that are persisting in NMDS have been continuing for years, even at the when I was a student at NUL where I completed his first degree in 2006.”
He said the NMDS was only a secretariat which has public officials and authorities overseeing its operations who should hold it to account.
Peshoane was reluctant to fully place the blame on the secretariat for regular disturbances that cloud the institutions of higher learning.
In his view, the NMDS turns out to be an easy target “while there is a white elephant in the room that everyone shies away from.”
