By Seleoe Nonyane
The annual Letṧeng Charity Golf Tournament that was staged in Maseru last week Friday proved to be a success after raising M312 000, which will go towards charity. This initiative is part of the mine’s corporate social investment programme which was established in 2006.
Since 2006, the initiative has supported a number of projects in different areas, with a total of M4 million having been collected over the years.
Letṧeng is a committed corporate citizen committed to undertake corporate social responsibility, and the charity tournament is consistent with this ideal.
The main objective is to collect revenue and identify vulnerable and disadvantaged groups and provide them with support.
The second objective is to have an informal interaction to promote a networking environment for the different captions of the corporate industry.
The corporate social responsibility and investment administrator of Letṧeng Diamonds, Tṧepo Hlojeng, said the event was part of the mine’s corporate investment programme where sister companies were invited to come and play golf and contribute towards charity.
“In this event, different companies participate and contribute financially to support the tournament’s charitable objectives. About 15 companies took part in this initiative; the companies are in various sectors, such as banking, insurance, mining.
“The same funds that are collected are used to support vulnerable groups in the Mokhotlong district where Letṧeng is based.
“We meet with authorities such as district administers and district councillors in Mokhotlong to identify these vulnerable groups and then come up with the appropriate project,” Hlojeng said.
He said in 2022 the project was able to construct several classrooms at Tṧepong Primary School in Mokhotlong.
He said the corporate social investment programme is a programme that should benefit Basotho as a whole but since they are based in Mokhotlong, that is where they need to start.
“Certainly, we should be able to move to other districts after we have addressed the challenges that prevail in Mokhotlong.
“We are now implementing the corporate social investment strategy for 2022 to 2027 and in that strategy we have also included the district of Thaba-Tṧeka; this is proof that we are now spreading and moving out of Mokhotlong, but that would be done gradually because of the resources that are allocated to the CSI on annual basis”, he said.
