Former Prime Minister Dr Pakalitha Mosisili’s government abused a whooping M450 million meant to fund national scholarships in flagrant violation of the law.

The shocking revelations are contained in the latest report of the Auditor-General, on the state of the government’s finances as of 31 March 2017.

The report takes aim at the mismanagement of public funds by the Mosisili coalition government, and gives it an adverse audit opinion.

The scathing report, compiled by Auditor-General Lucy Liphafa, exposes a pattern of abuse of public funds by a government which managed public money in complete disregard of the constitution, other laws governing public finances as well as international standards on managing public funds.

The auditor-general is tasked with auditing all government finances, and ensuring that public funds are properly deployed for their purposes.

But Ms Liphafa’s report exposes a former government that operated without any regard to its mandate to manage finances properly for the benefit of Basotho.