The Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Dr Retšelisitsoe Matlanyane says she is aware that various service providers have not received their payments from the Government.
The Minister said this in the National Assembly during the question and answer session on Thursday.
Dr Matlanyane said payments have already begun to be processed, saying progress to date is that arrears amounting to M23,56,515.87 have been paid and submitted to the Treasury department.
“The process is still ongoing. However, we have experienced challenges in processing some payments because of inadequate supporting information submitted by ministries and this has caused unintended delays that have slowed the payment process,” she explained.
She further clarified that some invoices lack supporting documents while other suppliers are not registered with the Integrated Financial Management and Information System (IFMIS) and that they are unable to be paid.
Again, the Minister noted that another challenge is the physical addresses in the system which do not match with the ones on the invoices and that banking details do not match with the ones in the system.
Dr Matlanyane said all the challenges are being addressed by urging the responsible ministries to communicate with their suppliers so that they could come to the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning to rectify all errors detected upon checking the payments.
‘’I call on all the suppliers to work with ministries to facilitate this process for successful completion,’’ she underlined.
To make further progress on the payment of arrears, Dr Matlanyane said the ministry has requested support from the Development Partners to engage an audit firm and other expertise to expeditiously assess the ministry’s submissions and advice on the way forward.
The Minister was responding to questions asked by a Member of Parliament for Thaba Tseka, Mrs. Mamamello Holomo who asked the Minister if she was aware that Basotho business people provide multiple types of services to the Government and are compelled to comply with their contracts’ stipulations, but despite that their businesses and livelihoods are put in constant jeopardy due to the failure of the Government to pay them on time.
She said sometimes it takes up to five months to make remittances, making a typical example being that of Basotho who lease their vehicles to the Government only to have the cars repossessed by banks for failure to make regular payments on their car loans; saying if the Minister was aware how soon this detrimental practice of the Government would be remedied.
Meanwhile, the Minister tabled the report on the annual financial statements of the Central Bank of Lesotho for the year ended in December 31, 2022 to the National Assembly and will be referred to the relevant committee for scrutiny before it can be brought back into the House for deliberations before being approved.
Source: LENA 03/11/23
