Tšeliso Moroke
There is an incompleteness with which this country has been developed.
Not incomplete in the sense of “still progressing,” but incomplete in its very conception. Lesotho has never been structurally developed as a self-sustaining national economy. It has been administered, financed, stabilised, and occasionally modernised, but never fundamentally transformed.
And until we confront this truth honestly, we will continue exhausting ourselves pretending we are something we are not.
The uncomfortable imperative is this: Lesotho functions less as an autonomous national economy and more as a structural reserve for whatever South Africa requires at a given time. Historically, this reserve function has shifted form, labour reserve during the mining boom, customs-revenue dependent satellite within the regional trade arrangement, consumer market for South African goods, and increasingly, a logistical appendage.
This is not rhetoric. It is political economy.
To present Lesotho as a fully autonomous economic system operating independently of South Africa’s industrial core is to misunderstand the structural reality of Southern Africa. We are deeply integrated, but asymmetrically so. South Africa produces; we consume. South Africa industrialises; we administrate. South Africa’s macroeconomic fluctuations reverberate directly through our fiscal stability.
And nowhere was this clearer than in the recent national budget.
The entire fiscal posture lacked vitality because of uncertainty surrounding SACU receipts. The projected decline in revenues from the Southern African Customs Union did not merely create technical budgetary anxiety, it exposed the fragility of our sovereignty. When a significant portion of your national revenue depends on regional trade flows you do not control, fiscal planning becomes speculation rather than strategy.
The budget was not expansionary because it could not be. It was not visionary because it dared not be. It was cautious, restrained, almost defensive, waiting for signals from Pretoria and global markets before daring to breathe.
That is not autonomy.
Your long-standing involvement in the modern capitalist economy of Southern Africa is vividly clear in this budget. Every revenue line and every restraint tells the story of dependency. Lesotho is integrated into capitalism, but not on its own terms. We are integrated as labour, as territory, as a customs pool participant, and as a consumer base.
Even the much-celebrated private sector reveals this contradiction.
We constantly hear that the private sector must lead growth. That government must “create an enabling environment.” That entrepreneurship will unlock prosperity. Yet the very same private sector relies heavily on government business. Many firms survive primarily on state tenders, public contracts, and procurement cycles. When government spending slows, the so-called private sector contracts.
That is not a dynamic capitalist class driving structural transformation. That is a contractor economy orbiting around the state.
In effect, the state is fiscally dependent on SACU, and the private sector is commercially dependent on the state. This circular dependency produces motion without movement. Budgets circulate. Contracts circulate. Funds circulate. But production does not deepen, industries do not diversify, and competitiveness does not improve.
This is what incompleteness looks like.
We have infrastructure without industrial depth. We have fiscal frameworks without fiscal sovereignty. We have private enterprise without independent accumulation. We have political independence without economic autonomy.
And yet we continue to narrate ourselves as though we are a self-contained national economy temporarily experiencing turbulence.
We are not “temporarily stressed.” We are structurally constrained.
The danger lies not in dependency itself; many small economies are integrated into larger systems. The danger lies in denying it. Because when you deny structural reality, you design policies based on illusion. You project revenue that is externally determined. You promise growth that you do not structurally generate. You speak of diversification without confronting the regional hierarchy that shapes your options.
The budget’s anxiety over SACU receipts is not a technical glitch; it is a mirror. It reflects how deeply our fiscal health is tied to external industrial performance. When South Africa slows, we tighten our belts. When global commodity cycles shift, we recalibrate. When regional trade declines, we panic.
That is the behaviour of a peripheral economy in a regional core–periphery structure.
So what is to be done?
First, intellectual honesty. We must acknowledge that Lesotho’s economy has historically functioned as a labour and fiscal appendage within the Southern African capitalist system. That acknowledgement is not defeatist; it is analytical clarity.
Second, strategic realism. True autonomy will not come from rhetoric about entrepreneurship alone. It will require deliberate industrial positioning within the regional value chain, identifying niches where Lesotho can produce, not merely circulate goods. It will require rethinking land use, aligning education with production, and linking infrastructure directly to export-generating sectors.
Third, political courage. Dependency benefits certain elites. A contractor class thrives on state tenders. Bureaucratic expansion thrives on administrative complexity. Regional dependency provides convenient excuses for domestic stagnation. Challenging this system means confronting entrenched interests.
And that is where the real struggle lies.
We are stressing ourselves by pretending to be what we are not. The path forward begins with acknowledging the incompleteness of our development and designing policy from structural reality, not nationalist fantasy.
A country moves not because it declares autonomy, but because it builds the material foundations to sustain it.
Until then, every budget will feel anxious. Every growth projection will feel fragile.
And every claim of independence will ring slightly hollow.
Summary
- Lesotho functions less as an autonomous national economy and more as a structural reserve for whatever South Africa requires at a given time.
- We are integrated as labour, as territory, as a customs pool participant, and as a consumer base.
- In effect, the state is fiscally dependent on SACU, and the private sector is commercially dependent on the state.
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