Ward councillors decry ridiculous salaries
’MATHATO SEBOKA
MASERU – Efforts by a group of ward councillors drawn from across the country’s 80 constituencies to secure a salary hike are being snubbed by the Ministry of Local Government, to which they are responsible.
The councillors say their pay is way too low compared to the duties they perform.
They say this meagre salary is making it difficult for them to fulfill their many responsibilities and that cannot sustain them. They have requested to be paid at least M20 000 per month. In their endeavour the councillors penned a letter to the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftainship Principal Secretary, ‘Mamphaka Mabesa, on August 5 last year tabulating their grievances and request for increased salaries.
“Our discussions as aggrieved councillors, came to a conclusion that M20 000 in monthly salaries was a reasonable request,” reads the letter to Mabesa in part, adding that “therefore, we request through your office and through the relevant departments, that the salary be increased in order to make our work easier.”
When their letter attracted no interest, the councillors followed that up with another letter now directed to local government minister Lebona Lephema. The second letter further requested a physical meeting with the minister.
This second letter was similarly ignored by the authorities at the ministry, and the meeting failed to take place.
A third initiative was undertaken by the councillors. A letter was written to the Clerk of the National Assembly, Advocate Lebohang Fine Maema, tabling their grievances – further indicating that the requested increment should be considered in the 2025/2026 budget.
In an interview with Public Eye, Motebang Matona, the coordinator of the disgruntled councillors, expressed displeasure that they not received any response to all the letters they have written to the authorities.
“We did follow up on whether there would eventually be a reply, about five times we checked with the PS at Local Government and made similar trips to the minister’s office about two times,” said Matona.
“We are given an allowance of about M4 600 per month but the responsibilities that the councillors have to bear are way above that allowance.
For instance, if there is a sick person, a child in need, a dead person, or a commotion in a village, the councillor has to be the one that helps financially. But that allowance is not enough to do such things,” Matona said.
Public Eye made several attempts in the past two weeks to source a response from the relevant officials in the Ministry of Local Government. During this time the ministry’s Public Relations Officer, Lucy Borotho, could only confirm that Minister Lephema has received the letter addressed to him but was yet to peruse its contents.
“I asked the office of the minister if they have received the councillors’ letter and they confirmed receipt but said the minister was yet to read it,” Borotho said.
The said letter was written on January 4.
Borotho continued to say that the minister is busy occupied with other government duties and he would definitely respond at the appropriate time.
“You have to bear with us because the minister is still busy and we will get back to Public Eye with information in about a week or two,” said Borotho.
The councillors face this situation while just recently the ministry struck a settlement with the Lesotho Workers Association (LWA) – representing local chiefs – to increase the chiefs’ salaries by a whopping 100 percent.
LWA had initially sought a review of the salaries arguing that the current payments were inadequate.
The current budget for the chiefs’ allowances stands at M120 456 720 annually. With the new adjustments, this figure will rise to M208 384 140, an increase of M87 927 420.
The LWA counter-offer proposing a minimum salary of M6 000 for the lowest chief position, shall be subjected to discussion and re-negotiations scheduled for October 2025.
