Maseru, July 31 — The National Reforms process will be a focal point during the Special Meeting of the 11th Parliament of the Kingdom of Lesotho scheduled for Monday next week in the new Parliament building.
Clerk of the National Assembly Advocate Lebohang Fine Maema told the Agency that the parliament has been recalled to work on and pass the ‘Omnibus Bill’, 10th Amendment to the constitution.
‘’This is to fulfil the commitment to speed up the National Reforms process,’’ he highlighted.
Adv. Maema stated that once the Bill has been passed by both Houses of parliament, the Special Meeting will end since the House is still on winter recess, it will be recalled at the relevant time, according to the parliament’s calendar, which ends at the end of August, this year.
The 10th parliament failed to pass the Omnibus Bill after being successfully challenged in the Constitutional Court for recalling the Parliament to work on and pass this Bill.
The Constitutional court found that the parliament had been unconstitutionally recalled and therefore all the business carried out during that period was duly nullified.
The Omnibus Bill is aimed among others to make 10th amendment to the Constitution as an attempt to restore peace, bring political stability and to revive economic growth in the country.
A National Reforms Authority (NRA) was established which was mandated to collect national views on several laws which needed to be amended and that process has already been completed.
Lesotho has experienced political instability since independence in 1966 which culminated into a military junta in 1986 until 1993 when the democracy was restored.
However, this also did not last long as the democratically elected government was toppled a year later and was only restored a month later due to intervention of international organisations.
The country has since 2012 been ruled by coalitions as no political party is able to garner enough votes to rule alone and some of them failed to finish their terms.
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