Billy Ntaote
Former Prime Minister Thomas Thabane’s administration awarded a British man, Peter Smith an exclusive 25-year all-waste project agreement for management and processing waste into energy and various products in 2018.
The project is touted as a long-lasting solution to a protracted battle between Maseru city residents of areas of Ha Tšosane and Tšenola and the Maseru City Council (MCC) over the relocation of a foul-smelling dumping site in the middle of their area that keeps ballooning as the city grows.
A letter seen by MNN, signed by now deceased former Minister of local government Habofanoe Lehana to the cedant –Prime Enviro Energy–dated 30th November 2018 reads: “We wish to confirm that Prime Enviro Energy has been granted by the Government of Lesotho through Ministry of Local Government and Chieftainship Affairs exclusive rights to control and process all waste in the Kingdom of Lesotho”.
Following the project confirmation letter by Minister Lehana, Prime entered into a 25-year and three-month contract with a maximum extension period of 25 years with the government of Lesotho.
On October 15, 2019, the then Ministry’s Principal Secretary Khothatso Tšooana signed a contract with Prime in the presence of Maseru City Council Town Clerk Moeko Maboee signing as a witness to the contract.
MNN also learned that Smith’s waste processing project received the green light in Lesotho as a result of the facilitation of meetings by the United Kingdom High Commission to Lesotho.
A source from the High Commission told MNN “Our [British High Commission] involvement was limited to making relevant introductions and assisting Mr Smith, as a British businessman, to meet Lesotho Government officials. We were not privy to the details of any commercial agreements he may have made with the Lesotho government”.
A request for response to questions sent to the High Commissioner was never responded to.
Part of the contract document signed by Tšooana reads: “The Contractor is engaged in a turnkey project in Maseru, Leribe, Mafeteng, and Botha-Bothe in Lesotho for the conversion of waste principally into Bio-diesel, Bio-gas and ethanol (the project) and it is essential that prime shall be in a position to be the exclusive waste collection contractor in Lesotho to ensure that the project has the necessary feedstock to be able to produce the end products desired by the Contractor and by the Government of Lesotho”.
Apart from job creation promises for Basotho, the project is supposed to remit to the local government ministry 10 percent of its profits annually after the first two years after the commissioning of the project.
In an interview with MNN, former Principal Secretary Khothatso Tšooana said he remembered Peter Smith, Prime’s deceased managing director whom he said brought a proposal to the Lesotho government during Prime Minister Thabane’s administration.
“I think what is most important is that there were no financial implications on the part of the Lesotho government. In our view, his proposal was very good for us as a country. But to my knowledge he died before he could implement the project,” said Tšooana.
He added that the local government ministry’s legal department played a pivotal role in the finalization of an agreement signed with Prime. “I must also indicate that I found the issues already in existence. My Minister at the time, Mr Lehana was already pursuing the agreement with Smith,” said Tšooana.
Tšooana said Smith had given the government the impression that he had the financial muscle to start work on his waste processing to energy project to get its approval. “During the negotiations stage, Smith wanted Lesotho to pay and we the signatories refused to enter into an agreement which has financial implications on Lesotho as he brought an unsolicited proposal to us. We ended up agreeing to an agreement which has no financial implications on the part of the Lesotho government,” said Tsooana.
He further said Prime ended up being given exclusive rights to implement its proposed waste processing into energy and other products as “it had no financial implications on government and there was no other similar project proposed by anyone to the government of Lesotho at the time”.
Tsooana’s witness to the agreement with Prime was former Town Clerk Maboee. Maboee told MNN that what he knows is that Prime’s contract was negotiated at a top level of government.
“The negotiations started during the first coalition government that started in 2012 and collapsed in 2015 and were resuscitated and given the green light during the second tenure of Prime Minister Thabane time that started in 2017,” said Maboee.
He further revealed that at some point in time “negotiations over the proposal by Smith were held with the facilitation of the UK High Commission to Lesotho. Negotiations ended with Prime Minister Thabane concluding that Smith be given a contract to implement his waste project proposal”.
Maboee said following the signing of the contract some time passed and we heard the news that the project’s initiator had died of Covid-19.
“Following Smith’s demise, we learned that his son took over control of the company. What we know is that the person who possessed the requisite technical skills for the project to take off was Smith [Managing Director of Prime]. We learned that after the son took over the company, he (the son) said he has no interest in working in Lesotho,” said Maboee.
