Expect Improved Pensions this November - Thahane

The National Vision 2020 draft document has been adopted as an official working document by the second national dialogue which sat in Maseru from June 9 to 10.

The delegates who adopted the document represented a wide variety of the nation including youth and women's representatives, development councils, Parliamentarians, academics, consumers, teachers, farmers, people with disability, traditional healers, and trade unionists. 

Officially closing the national dialogue, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Training Mr. Lesao Lehohla said important issues have emerged from the discussions and that the deliberations proved beyond reasonable doubt that indeed a nation can be a master of its own destiny if it only has the will to do so.

Mr. Lehohla said one matter of great concern to many stakeholders is the fate of the document once it has
been finalised. Experience has shown that similar documents have been left to gather dust on bureaucrats' shelves.

"It is the commitment of Government to ensure that the National Vision is implemented and monitored. We are convinced more than at any other time that this process will move ahead in earnest," he said.

One of the milestones will be to harmonise all the pillars of the Vision, which include among others, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper and the Public Sector Improvement and Reform Programme. Certain institutions have been proposed to ensure effective implementation and monitoring of this important long term national plan, including the Parliamentary Committee on Planning and the revamped National Planning Board as an advisory body and a privately run think tank on public Policy Research and Analysis.

The Deputy Prime Minister called on Basotho to embrace this Vision as theirs and to make every possible effort that will help attain its objectives in the next twenty years.

The Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Dr. Timothy Thahane, announced at the meeting that beginning this November, Government will begin payment of a monthly pension of M150 to people aged 70 and above. Preparations are at an advanced stage for registration to start in the different villages, with the eventual intention of having the pensioners get their allowances as close to their homes as possible so they would not spent the already little funds on transport.

14 June 2004