The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice, Law and Parliamentary Affairs, Justice Nthomeng Majara has on Monday applauded the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for their support during the National Reforms process.

Justice Majara said this at a workshop aimed at presenting and discussing various components of the findings and recommendations of the institutional gap assessment of core governance institutions.

She noted that the funding which the UNDP has been supporting Lesotho had to be suspended due to the challenges the National Reforms process currently faces. Still, she said she hoped the country would be able to continue with the process.

Justice Majara highlighted that during the National Dialogue process and consolidation of popular views towards the content of the reforms, one of the concerns was the considerable performance gap in the technical and management capabilities of the Legislature, the Judiciary and the Executive.

She further articulated that the UNDP in collaboration with the Ministry of Law and Parliamentary Affairs through the National Reforms Transitional Office (NRTO)  tasked a consultant to undertake an institutional gap assessment of the core governance institutions, namely the Ministries of Defence, National Security and Environment,  Justice, Law and Parliamentary Affairs, Finance and Development Planning, Local Government, Chieftainship, Home Affairs and Police as well the Public Service Labour and  Employment.

Meanwhile, UNDP Resident Representative Dr Jacqueline Olweya indicated that amongst the findings from the report, there are capacity gaps in core governance institutions, making it hard for expected functions in the Ministries to be carried out efficiently, hence the National Reforms initiative.

The workshop was attended by Ministers, government officials, the Clerk of the National Assembly, as well as representation from UNDP and EU.

Source: LENA 06/11/2023