Health workers drag government to court

M800 for life-savers stays stuck as they sue for contempt

MOTSAMAI MOKOTJO

MASERU – Seven Village Health Workers have launched a fresh legal battle against the government, returning to the Labour Court to seek contempt of court orders against the Ministries of Health, Finance, and Public Service, among eight other respondents.

The application, filed on May 20, lays bare a deeply troubling pattern of institutional defiance that has left more than 9,000 frontline health workers earning as little as M800 per month — nearly three years after a landmark court ruling declared them entitled to minimum wage.

The seven applicants — Mary Mojela, ‘Mapontso Mokoteli, ‘Mantsane Ntlojoane, ‘Makatiso ‘Mota, ‘Maleboela Tšola, ‘Makopano Tota and ‘Maboikano Lebitsa — are members of the Lesotho Workers Association (LEWA) and work across the country’s ten districts. They are not asking for a new right. They are asking for an old one to be respected – the authority of the courts.

The roots of this case go back to November 7, 2023, when the Labour Court delivered a landmark judgment under case number LC/REV/57/22, declaring that Village Health Workers are employees of the Ministry of Health and entitled to remuneration in line with Lesotho’s minimum wage requirements.

The ruling should have ended years of uncertainty for workers long treated as volunteers rather than state employees.

But the Ministry of Health did not comply. The excuse? No budget allocation.

What followed was a bureaucratic odyssey. In January 2024, the Ministry of Health requested funding authority from the Ministry of Finance. That request went unanswered. By May 2025 — a full year and a half after the court ruling — the Principal Secretary of Health was again writing to Finance, this time requesting M507 million: M178 million for the current financial year and M328 million in arrears.

The Ministry of Finance finally responded on June 2, 2025. Rather than releasing funds to give effect to a court order, it raised a series of technical queries – cost breakdowns, wage differentials, legal references. It asked for spreadsheets. It asked for clarity. It promised to “fast-track” review once all information was provided. In the meantime, the workers continued earning M800 a month.

Faced with bureaucratic stonewalling, LEWA and the Ministry of Health negotiated a Deed of Settlement, signed on September 22, 2025. It was a pragmatic compromise. Instead of insisting on immediate full implementation of the original court order, LEWA agreed to a phased approach.

For the 2025/2026 financial year, the Ministry would request increases to M2 500 for Coordinators, M1 800 for Supervisors, and M1 200 for Village Health Workers. For 2026/2027, those figures would rise to M3 100, M2 800, and M2 500 respectively.

The settlement expressly provided that the agreement be attached to all documents submitted to the Ministry of Finance.

On October 9, 2025, the President of the Labour Court, Justice Teboho Thoso, turned the settlement into a court order. That order ought to have settled the matter.

It did not.

When the new financial year began in April 2026, the allowances had not increased — not by a single Loti. Workers remained on M800 per month, the same amount they had been receiving before any court orders or settlement agreements existed.

On January 7, 2026, the Ministry of Health had already submitted yet another savingram to Finance, referencing the deed of settlement and court order. Still, nothing changed.

On March 3, LEWA wrote formally to the Ministry of Health, copying the Ministry of Finance and its Principal Secretary. The letter was unequivocal: the failure to place Village Health Workers on a proper salary scale on budgetary grounds is legally untenable.

“A court order cannot be suspended or ignored on the grounds of budgetary inconvenience,” the letter stated. “The rule of law demands strict and immediate compliance.”

The Ministry of Health replied on April 14, acknowledging the situation and confirming that it had taken steps to engage the Ministry of Finance. The reply conceded something damning: “Regrettably, this request was not honoured.”

The Ministry of Health itself admitted that the Ministry of Finance had failed to release the funds.

This case extends far beyond the seven applicants. There are 8 501 Village Health Workers, 600 Supervisors, and 285 Coordinators across Lesotho — more than 9 000 people who provide primary healthcare at the grassroots level, reaching communities that formal health facilities cannot always serve. Many depend entirely on their stipends. They currently earn M800 per month.

Meanwhile, the legal processes needed to force the government to pay what a court has twice ordered now stretch across three years.

The contempt application, filed on May 20, names nine respondents – the Ministry of Health, its Principal Secretary, the Ministry of Public Service and its Principal Secretary, the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning and its Principal Secretary, the Officer Commanding Police Central Charge Office, the Commissioner of Police and the Attorney General.

The police respondents are not joined as contemnors but as the enforcement mechanism. Should continued non-compliance occur, the applicants pray that the police be directed to arrest and commit the Principal Secretaries of Health, Public Service, and Finance to prison for 90 days, or until they purge their contempt.

The applicants argue with considerable force that what the respondents are engaged in is a wilful, deliberate, and intentional disregard of lawful court orders. The respondents were served with court orders. They acknowledged them.

The Ministry of Finance itself, in its June 2025 savingram, acknowledged the importance of adhering to the ruling and the need for timely and fair compensation. Yet when April 2026 came, nothing was done. The applicants submit that this is not administrative delay — it is contempt, plain and simple.

There is a constitutional dimension to all of this. Courts in Lesotho derive their authority from the Constitution. When a court issues an order, it is not a suggestion or a request to be weighed against fiscal priorities. It is a command of law.

The conduct of these respondents, the applicants argue, strikes at the very heart of the rule of law and undermines the authority of the judiciary itself.

Every month that passes without compliance is a fresh breach. Every M800 stipend paid to a Village Health Worker when a court has ordered otherwise is a continuation of that breach.

The matter has been filed as urgent. The applicants seek a declaratory order that the respondents are in contempt, a directive for full compliance within 30 days, and payment of all arrears from January 2024 to date of compliance. In the event of continued non-compliance, they ask the court to authorise the police to enforce the order through imprisonment of the responsible accounting officers.

For the thousands of health workers who serve Basotho communities on M800 a month — less than the national minimum wage — the question is no longer about money alone. It is about whether the government respects its own courts, its own laws, and its own people.