Kopano Ke Matla Officially a

Publish What You Pay Coalition Member

By Cindy Easterday, JH Companionship Facilitator

Official notice has been received from the worldwide Publish What You Pay campaign (PWYP)* that the applications of Kopano ke Matla and the Transformation Resource Centre (TRC), a partner organization in Maseru, have been accepted as members of the worldwide PWYP coalition, the first members in Lesotho.

The TRC has long played a mediating and advocacy role for those people displaced and negatively affected by the building of dams as part of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. With future dam projects in the pipeline, their role continues to be an important one as they to seek influence role players to avoid the same problems created in the past.

With increased interest and investment in the diamond mining industry in Lesotho, another opportunity has been provided for TRC’s involvement with PWYP as they watchdog the developments in this area.

*To fight corruption associated with extractive industries the PWYP campaign seeks disclosure of financial transactions and contractual agreements between multinationals operating in this sector and their host governments. Following the request from their Cameroonian partners, the Joining Hands team from Chicago Presbytery began advocating for the Presbyterian Church USA to become coalition member of the Publish What You Pay campaign. The 218th General Assembly of 2008 in San Jose will vote on the Presbytery’s overture proposing that action. Presbyterians are urged to join the lobby for the Extractive Industries Transparency Disclosure Act, recently introduced by Massachusetts Democratic Representative and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank.

For more information on PWYP see the Cameroonian Chapters of the current edition and of archived Joining Hands Newsletters

Interview With KKM Executive Committee Member and Farmer, Letlamoreng Lehloenya

Following are the insights and comments of Ntate Lehloenya following a conversation with him recently.

What do you see are some of the things influencing poverty in Lesotho?
In local communities it is generally the ruling party members who make the policies, and these are then imposed on the people. Even when these things affect you directly your input is not accepted if you are not a member of that party.

How can the network be part of changing this?
Some of KKM’s members belong to the ruling party and can have some influence in their own areas.

What about the churches in these communities?
The churches could act as mediators, which could help change the way this is done so every person has some influence in what happens. But now this isn’t happening as the churches are afraid of being perceived as being part of the opposition. What network members could do is work to bring the church and local chiefs together and work toward a new way forward, but you also sometimes find the chiefs are also employed by the ruling party.

Even the local councillors, who are to represent the people, and other local government people are not selected on their ability but on their political alliance. So implementation can be a problem.

How could we include the church as a network?
We could go to them as network representatives or as individuals with a plan and explain that we are not against the government – that we actually want to help government to be more effective for the people.

What other things do you think influence poverty here?
Some of our cultural traditions, such as lebollo (initiation ceremonies), can also have some negative effects. With lebollo, the young men are taken from 4 to 6 months to remote areas, where they cut down trees for wood to keep warm but they don’t plant replacements. So there is a continuous decline in tree growth.

Also, now, rather than being a part of the normal social culture, it has become a business for some and so can be a very expensive practice, creating a great financial burden for a family. The family must pay a lot of money for their son to go, in addition to providing other things during and at the end of the ceremony. If they don’t, the young man is not accepted back into his village or community.

It sounds like the tradition itself could be very helpful to the young men but that it’s being taken advantage of by some in non-helpful ways.

Yes, it’s true. Many young men and their families like this tradition but they cannot afford it now.

Do you think there’s anything that could change the way it is now going?
The churches need to get involved themselves in a positive way to change this. Our ancestors have become our gods and the church could teach the initiates about Jesus and the way we are to live, what scripture says about how to take care of the environment, and that if we follow him and do these things Jesus will bless us.