By Mothusi Thabane
The minister in the Prime Minister’s office, Limpho Tau, has dismissed as unfounded concerns from certain quarters of the public that a government asset search and recovery task team is targeting certain individuals.
Speaking at a press briefing last Friday, Tau said the government has no reason to target anybody except to protect its property and recover any other property that has been acquired illegally by individuals.
This follows government’s decision to form a task team to take stock of all its movable and immovable property. Tau said the inventory will include developed and undeveloped sites. “This includes government houses to find out who the occupants are, and to investigate the legality of their occupancy of those houses.”
He said the task team will also find out if any government property is being rented out illegally, for how long it has been rented, and if such rent is being paid to the government. “The other asset that the government will probe is use of government vehicles and the amount of money spent on fleet management and fuel consumption,” he said. “This team will also locate and assess the value of heavy construction machinery.”
The task team is made of 11 members from the Prime Minister’s office, the ministry of finance, ministry of works, the LDF, LMPS and the NSS.
“I am aware that there are some Basotho who made statements over local radio stations that the government is targeting certain individuals, but that is not so. The government is not only carrying out its mandate, but it is seeking to protect public property and to recover any property that might have been acquired illegally,” Tau said.
He added that where occupants have leases to the land in question, investigations will be done to ascertain whether correct procedures were followed in the issuance of such leases and whether the transfers from the government to the individuals were properly followed.
“Where a lease was properly issued and later transferred to a third party, we will look at the process that triggered the transfer in the first place. The trigger might not be lawful, and where there is unlawfulness the matter will be settled in court.”
“The team will report to the Prime Minister monthly, but the main report will be given after six months, going forward,” he said. “This is not expected to take too long because what is important is that the property should be recovered so that we can find out what the government had since 1966 when Lesotho became independent and to recover whatever slipped through government hands since independence.”
Tau conceded that it is true that the government might have decided to sell some of its property.
“The second issue is that of government vehicles that are sometimes found at scrapyards or at certain business premises. These are some of the properties that the government wants to recover,” he said adding clearly.
