Maseru, May 06 – Minister of Justice, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Mr. Richards Ramoeletsi has presented two bills for the first reading in the National Assembly on Monday.

The two Bills are the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution Bill, 2024 as well as the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution Bill, 2024 for the first reading.

Speaker of the National Assembly Mr. Tlohang Sekhamane said two Bills which require a simple majority support as well as which require two thirds majority support will be referred to the relevant committee according to standing orders.

The Minister had stated last Friday that the Twelve Amendment to the Constitution which requires a referendum will be withheld to allow logistical arrangements to be made by the Government.

He said the country has never held the referendum before, saying even the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) needs to be ready to conduct a referendum finically and administratively.

The two bills are paving the way for the National Reforms Agenda which is a document containing the views and interests of Basotho across which was conducted by the National Reforms Authority (NRA).

Lesotho aims to undertake reforms on several sectors such as the security agencies, public service, media, parliament and judiciary.

However, the process of the reform agenda encountered several challenges such as being declared unconstitutional in the courts of law.

Even though the Government aims to leave no one behind in the national reforms agenda process, it is likely to face a daunting task to convince the opposition parties represented in the National Assembly.

The opposition has not been supportive of the Government citing that the playing field is not levelled for them to freely participate in the process.

Member of Parliament for ‘Makhoroana, Mr. Ts’itso Cheba cited that the Government led by Prime Minister Mr. Ntsokoane Matekane has to come clean from the joint statement that was made by the security agencies bosses last year, where they were reported to have boldly stated that they would not allow any change of government.

This was during the motion of no confidence to the Prime Minister and his Government, saying the Members of Parliament should rather focus on the National Reforms Agenda process instead of the motion of no confidence.

The opposition considered this statement as political interference by the security agencies and therefore called on the Government to condemn the security agencies and to publicly rebuke the security agencies.

However, the Government has not yet made any statement to that effect.