30 May 2025 by Pascalinah Kabi

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When former Deputy Prime Minister, Lesao Lehloha, introduced the parliamentary calendar adopted in September 2003, he effectively set the stage for Lesotho’s members of parliament to be paid twelve months salary for work only done in six months. 

Under this calendar, MPs take a three-month winter break (June, July, and August), a two-month summer recess (December and January), plus two-week breaks around Easter and Independence Day. Altogether, these breaks add up to six months out of the year when parliament is not in session. In total, these scheduled breaks mean that parliament is inactive for six out of twelve months each year.

Even during the six months when parliament is in session, MPs work just four hours a day — half the length of a standard eight-hour workday. This translates to roughly two and a half full working days per week in six months. 

Put simply, the lowest-paid MP in Lesotho takes home M474,348 annually for what is essentially part-time work — a setup that raises serious questions about fairness, accountability, and commitment to public service.

Beyond this generous salary, MPs enjoy additional perks, including a sitting allowance just for showing up, and a monthly transport allowance of M5,000 — even during the six months when parliament is not in session.

Today, May 30, 2025, parliament will — without shame — embark on its three-month winter break, despite the serious crisis staring us in the face as Basotho. One would have expected that by now, our lawmakers would have revisited and revised this outdated calendar — shortened the recess or scrapped it altogether — to allow themselves to serve the nation more meaningfully by helping chart solutions to the deepening crisis caused by the U.S. foreign aid freeze.

But no — behold our political leaders, smiling all the way to the bank to collect salaries for the next three months, all while sitting comfortably at home — even as 625 health workers have lost their jobs and 128,364 beneficiaries on antiretroviral therapy are now scrambling to find alternative facilities after services were disrupted at 104 health centers across six districts.

The government is fully aware of these mounting challenges — including the staggering loss of M852,278,703 in USAID funding due to the U.S. foreign aid freeze imposed by President Donald Trump in January 2025. Yet, there is no sign of a proposal to bring the 120 elected leaders together — to set aside political differences and forge a collective response to help Basotho through this crisis.

Worryingly, the opposition is also silent. There is no call to suspend the winter break, even as 12,900 workers in the clothing and textile sector now face possible unemployment following the 50 percent reciprocal tariffs the U.S. imposed on Lesotho in April 2025. Although these tariffs have been temporarily paused for 90 days, it doesn’t take an economist to see what’s coming: investors whose businesses rely on exporting 80 percent of their goods to the U.S. are already exploring alternative countries with stronger trade ties to America — places where their goods can move tax-free or under significantly lower tariffs.

Meanwhile, our beloved 120 parliamentarians — 80 elected through constituencies and 40 through proportional representation — will spend June, July, and August sipping tea or coffee in the comfort of their homes. Come September, they will likely return with straight faces, demanding that their benefits be benchmarked against those of their South African counterparts — all while conveniently ignoring the fact that they work just six months a year, and even then, only for four hours a day.

On days when committee meetings are scheduled from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., few MPs bother to attend, let alone make meaningful contributions. Some sessions are attended by fewer than four out of nine members. Others stroll in, sit silently, and leave without uttering a single word. And then there are those infamous moments — like when Revolution for Prosperity MP Makotoko Moshe of Matsieng asked why inmates are not dying in large numbers.

Compare this to South Africa, where MPs take a modest four-day Easter break in line with their 2025 Parliamentary Programme Framework. In Lesotho, however, our legislators vanish for two full weeks. Even on days they are scheduled to work, many show up at the National Assembly only to say a brief prayer, mutter an amen, sign for their M150 sitting allowance, and exit the building — all in under an hour.

Sometimes, the only item on the order paper — set by the business committee, now chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Justice Nthomeng Majara — is prayer. This allows MPs to clock in, collect their allowance, and head off to enjoy a chilled box of Rain Dance — all under the guise of a working day.

And when they are not skipping sessions or collecting allowances for doing nothing, some MPs entertain the nation with full-blown fistfights, like the notorious 2019 brawl over wool and mohair regulations. That altercation resulted in damaged parliamentary property, costing taxpayers millions to replace furniture and equipment.

If you thought the Rain Dance moments or the infamous fistfights were as low as it gets, wait until you see our esteemed parliamentarians caught on camera — not debating policy or national crises, but grumbling because one of their colleagues failed to call a girl he’d asked to be matched with. 

And if you expected Prime Minister Samuel Matekane to offer a dignified, strategic response to the devastating U.S. tariffs, brace yourself. His initial reaction? A light-hearted quip: “Trump is our fellow man.” That’s the level of seriousness our leadership brings to a crisis threatening tens of thousands of jobs.

All this would be laughable — if it weren’t happening against the backdrop of a national crisis. This is a country where 760,000 young people are unemployed — a staggering figure confirmed in the 2025/26 Budget Estimates presented by Finance and Development Planning Minister Dr. Retšelisitsoe Matlanyane. Yet, despite these dire realities, our honourable MPs are heading into a three-month recess — all under the pretext of “visiting constituencies” to report on what little, if anything, they have done since the Easter break.

Yet the farce continues — not as an exception, but as a feature of how our democracy now operates. It’s not just about individual MPs choosing leisure over labour; it’s about a system that enables and even encourages this mediocrity.

And so, at the heart of all this dysfunction lies a deeply broken system — one that rewards absence, normalises underperformance, and shields politicians from the real consequences of inaction. For M474,348 a year, MPs are not required to show results, only presence. And even that is optional. Their greatest political skill seems not to be legislating or oversight, but surviving public outrage while doing the bare minimum.

So if you are looking for a job where showing up late, leaving early, and saying a prayer counts as a day’s work — and where six months off is standard, not scandalous — then Lesotho’s Parliament might be your dream employer. Just don’t expect accountability, urgency, or service. Those, like the unemployed youth, 625 abandoned health workers and 128, 364 patients across this country, have long been left outside the parliamentary gates.