Compensation Victory for Displaced Villagers

Maseru: people resettled at Ha Matala argue they need individual compensation to make new lives for themselves in the city. Credit: Martin Schârli/Wikicommons

MASERU, Sep 25 (IPS) - Taelo Motseki had every reason to wear a broad smile despite the afternoon chill. His family along with 21 others displaced by Phase 1B of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project at Ha Mohale had won a decade-long struggle seeking compensation.



On Sep 8, the Ombudsman, Sekara Mafisa, reversed and earlier decision and ruled in their favour, ending what had become a source of both frustration and anger for the 22 households now resettled at Ha Matala, in Lesotho's capital, Maseru.

"It has been a long and painful wait because since we moved to Maseru; life has been very difficult because of the change of environment," Motseki told IPS.

Ha Matala is by no means a dumping ground - the village on the outskirts of Maseru consists of brick and mortar houses a cut above the crude shacks that characterise much of the capital. But resettlement there in 1998 was a wrenching change for the villagers.

"It meant we had to change our way of life… while we were used to having most things free, such as water and energy, here we are having to pay for them. And the delay in compensation has made it even more difficult," Motseki explained.

"I was a farmer back then, keeping 30 cattle, 13 donkeys, 100 sheep and four horses. And I had to leave all that behind and not being able to get something for it was the most painful thing I have had to endure."

The villagers were relocated to make way for the LHWP, a massive project that supplies water to South Africa's industrial heartland in Gauteng province.

The 22 families were relocated to Matala, reportedly with assurances they would be compensated for lost property and such communal resources as pastoral land, medicinal plants and fuel, among others.


Another Ha Matala villager, Anna Moepi Mahao said the Ombudsman's latest decision had brought some light into their lives, which she claimed had been turned upside-down following the relocation.

"The management of LHDA promised us the money although they are now reluctant to give it to us. We left our sources of livelihood back there and most of us are not working. It has been difficult living here in Maseru the past 10 years. Hopefully, the Authority will see reason and pay us what is due to us," said Mahao.

The dispute arose when the villagers and the LHWP failed to agree on how compensation would be effected. The villagers wanted individual households to be compensated; the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority, which administers compensation for the project, insisted that its policy was to make a payment to the whole community of Ha Matala in which they had been resettled.

Following a public hearing into the matter in 2003, the Ombudsman accepted the LHDA's argument that including people who had lived in Ha Matala before the resettlement from compensation would only create tension between new and old residents.

But the villagers refused to accept this, and have now successfully convinced the Ombudsman that as the first group to be resettled from the rural highlands to their new urban location, their case fell not under the 1997 Compensation Policy the LHDA defended its decision on, but under another class of compensation.

The families stressed they had been told they were to be resettled in the Maseru municipal area, where they would not be allowed to keep livestock, but would have to pay for water, electricity, graveyards and so on. So in contrast to families relocated to other rural communities, the Ha Matala settlers had lost their means of livelihood and individual households needed the money to pay for basic requirements of urban life.

The Ombudsman agreed, ordering the LHDA to pay compensation as well as interest covering what he termed an unreasonable delay. Quickly adding up the figures in the ruling, a family would expect to receive a little under 300 U.S. dollars a year or $6,150 if they opt for their compensation as a lump sum.


But the villagers may be celebrating too soon: the LHDA has announced it will contest the Ombudsman’s latest ruling. On Sep 18, LHDA acting chief executive officer Masilo Phakoe said the authority's board would meet to come up with a position.