HONOURABLE MINISTERS' PRESENTATION "ON CAMERA" LIVE ON LTV/RADIO LESOTHO ON 21ST JULY - 14TH AUGUST 2003

HONOURABLE MINISTERS’ PRESENTATION “ ON CAMERA”   Live on LTV/Radio Lesotho On 21st July    –  14th August 2003

   

 THE PLAN

It is planned that each Ministry shall be given a maximum of 1hr30 minutes to address the following issues:

• mission statements and objectives of the Ministry

• Achievements

• what has the Ministry achieved in the past year

• Forecasting

  What are the current goals and objectives of the ministry leading to 2006?

  How do they relate to the four main goals set by government?

  How would they impact ( change) the lives of the Basotho as a nation?

 LESOTHO GOVERNMENT NATIONAL GOALS

Before the Honourable Ministers present on camera their Ministerial goals and objectives, there will be a 30 Minutes slot given to the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister to lay a foundation by presenting to the public, the Lesotho Government National Goals. This presentation by the RT. Hon. Prime Minister may go without questions and answer session

 THE PROGRAMME 

The broadcasting of the programme shall be be both on radio and television. Arrangements have been made to have an in-Studio audience and phone-in mechanisms are also in place to cater for people who can not make it into the studio to make their comments and/ or ask questions. Honourable Ministers are requested to bring along with them their Principal and Deputy Principal Secretaries due to limited space.

For back up, other members of the Ministry would be part of the in-Studio audience, where it will be possible for them to feed the panel with information through the floor manager of the day, or to respond from the audience. This is done for the benefit of Honourable Ministers to have their technocrats close by for those questions that would require their inputs. 

BACKGROUND

The government of Lesotho has conducted nation wide consultations on the needs to the country. As a result of these consultations, a document called the VISION 2020 was developed. In the last two years, a team composed of government officials and the non-governmental organisations has been going around the country in a view to getting the people’s opinions on the contents of the document. A fairly large ground of work has been covered in the last two years. We now at the stage whereby individual Ministries have developed their goals for the next five years, which are derived from various Government services including the vision 2020 which is the National Development Policy document.

The fact that Ministries have now developed their goals and objectives for the next five years, it is an indication that the time has come for us (Government) to inform the public of what we are doing and how. This exercise will in turn inform us if there are some improvements that we need to undertake before it is too late to mend.

The Right Honourable Prime Minister of Lesotho, Mr Pakalitha B. Mosisili, in his opening address at the launch of the UNDP Human Development Report, said:

“The Government of Lesotho has a track record of employing the participatory planning approach in various development initiatives.  Amongst the many examples, mention should be made of the on-going development of the national vision and the poverty reduction strategy paper.  In the period ahead, the Government is committed to ensuring the widest participation of Basotho not only in the planning but also in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of national development initiatives.  This should ensure ownership and protection of, as well as a sense of pride in, the resultant socio-economic developments”.

It is against this backdrop that, the Ministry of Communications has made an opening in their programmes for the Honourable Ministers to present their Ministries’ plans and achievements as a way of practicing what the Right Honourable Prime Minister promised the nation. It is also a way of inviting the nation to participate in the monitoring and evaluation of national development initiatives, thus the importance of this exercise cannot be overemphasised.

GOVERNMENT GOALS:

The Government of Lesotho has identified four major goals to be achieved by the year 2006. These are the goals that seemed pertinent in the development of Lesotho. These are:

·        Enhancement of Economic growth

·        Reduction of Poverty

·        Improvement of Human Resource, and

·        Deepening of Democracy, Peace and Stability.

The Ministerial goals that Honourable Ministers shall be presenting in the planned radio and television show stem from the above captioned National Goals. It is therefore thought appropriate for them to be presented by the Government Secretary to set the stage for the Honourable Ministers’ presentations.

THE PRESENTATION:

Presentations are arranged to take place starting from 21^st July 2003, from 2000Hrs to 2100Hrs, five days a week (Monday to Friday). The presenting panel shall consist of three people, namely, the Honourable Minister, Principal Secretary and the Deputy Principal Secretary. This way it will be possible for everybody to present within the given times in order to allow for questions and comments.

The Ministry of Communications will identify four (4) reporters who will anchor the programme. The programme will follow the following format:

20 Minutes:  Content as guided by the Interviewer; otherwise this will be divided as follows:

1 Min.             Ministerial goals and objectives,

                        3 Min.             Ministry’s achievements,

                        14 Min.           Ministries’ projections to 2006, and

                        2 Min.             Interviewer’s interventions  

10 Minutes:  Wrap up on issues covered and or omitted.

30 Minutes:  Questions and comments from the floor and telephone.

 SCHEDULE OF PRESENTATIONS:

 6th August 2003