Geingob, as the current chairperson of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) organ on politics, defence and security cooperation, is tasked to deal with conflicted nations in the region.
Matekane paid Geingob a courtesy visit at State House yesterday.
“I know we are going to take Lesotho off that list of countries with problems in Africa. So maintain that,” the president said.
Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have previously been identified as conflicted countries, which Geingob has to address.
However, the president’s organ troika last month expressed satisfaction with progress in Lesotho and agreed to help the country with ongoing reforms in line with democracy and stability.
A 2021 United Nations assessment shows a political party system built on strong personalities rather than institutions grounded in ideological principles and a weak economy are at the centre of conflict and political instability.
Matekane yesterday promised Geingob that the kingdom’s recent instability is a thing of the past.
“The problems have been over since 7 October when the elections were held. Now, no more problems. We want to see a different Lesotho,” he assured Geingob.
To deal with the country’s debt, the prime minister said he cut the country’s ministries from 27 to 15.
“That’s a huge saving,” he said.
Matekane’s government further plans to upskill its productivity to decrease imports.
According to the World Bank, Lesotho’s economic performance has remained weak, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic as well as sustained political instability.
On bilateral cooperation, the prime minister said they are yet to identify areas
“There are various things we can work on together, and we will agree on those,” he said.
The prime minister said since he took office eight days ago service delivery has been dealt with.
“The potholes at towns, that I have done, because I started on the same day. I put up a team to fix the potholes at town. The other one is a hanging fruit . . . we had a problem that our town was dark because we didn’t have electricity,” he said.
The prime minister said a recent power outage was caused by cable theft.
“We are busy trying to fix it. We are hoping to complete it in five or six weeks,” he said.
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