Dr. Theko Tlebere
Lesotho’s decision to retain thirty seven (37) police officers who are on leave pending retirement has generated an important public debate. It is a debate that should not be reduced to a simplistic confrontation between experienced police officers and unemployed young people. The country needs institutional memory, experienced commanders, and competent mentors. Equally, however, a government that has declared youth unemployment a national disaster cannot afford to make employment decisions that create the public perception that opportunities are being preserved for those already inside the system while thousands outside it continue waiting at the gates.
Today I want to talk to the policy that the government of Lesotho, must confront with urgency. The statistics presented by the Lesotho Mounted Police Service (LMPS) provide a legitimate institutional justification for concern. The police service has experienced substantial losses through retirement, death, resignation, and dismissal. Since 2022, according to figures presented by senior police management, the service has lost 474 officers. The current police-to-population ratio has reportedly deteriorated to approximately one police officer for 551 citizens. The Chief of Police has further argued that the service requires approximately 9,000 to 10,000 officers and that even the recruitment of 500 new officers will not immediately close the existing staffing gap.
These figures should not be ignored. But neither should another figure: thirty eight percent (38%) youth unemployment. Lesotho declared the socio-economic effects of high youth unemployment and job losses a national state of disaster, with the declaration running until June 2027. This was an extraordinary policy decision, and rightly so. A government that respects itself and its people does not declare a national disaster merely to issue statements of concern. Such a declaration must fundamentally influence how government institutions make decisions about public employment, recruitment, succession, and the distribution of opportunities.
This is where the retention of officers approaching or already entering retirement requires greater policy sensitivity. The issue is not that the 37 officers should necessarily be sent home. The issue is whether government has designed their retention in a manner that creates opportunity beneath them rather than congestion below them. A modern human-resource system should never treat experience and youth as competing alternatives. The most effective institutional model is one of structured succession: senior professionals transfer institutional knowledge while junior professionals rise through the ranks, and new entrants enter the system.
The danger in Lesotho is that the public may interpret the current arrangement differently. For a young police officer waiting for promotion, the extension of a senior officer’s contract may appear to mean another three or five years of waiting. For a graduate or unemployed young Mosotho from Ha Khohlopo hoping to join the police service, it may appear that government is extending employment for those already employed while telling young people to remain patient. I am certain that my uncle’s thinking even if he is from Ha Khohlopo, having watched government declare unemployment a national disaster, the symbolism is potentially damaging. And symbolism matters in public policy. Governments do not govern statistics alone. They govern expectations of its people.
The LMPS has indicated that many of the officers being retained occupy managerial positions and that their continued presence is intended to support mentoring, supervision and succession planning. This is potentially a reasonable justification. However, succession planning should mean preparing successors, not indefinitely retaining incumbents because successors have not been prepared. This distinction is fundamental. Government should therefore insist that every retained officer must be attached to a clearly identified succession plan. If an officer’s experience is genuinely indispensable, government should ask: Who is being prepared to replace that officer, and by what date? Retention without succession becomes institutional stagnation. Retention with succession becomes capacity development. The 37 officers should therefore not simply receive renewed contracts. Their contracts should be transformed into structured transition contracts. Each retained officer should have explicit responsibilities for mentoring, skills transfer and preparing junior officers to assume greater responsibilities.
This would achieve three objectives simultaneously. First, it would preserve institutional memory. Second, it would accelerate the promotion of capable junior officers. Third, it would ensure that the eventual departure of senior officers does not create another institutional crisis. The government should also avoid presenting the recruitment of 500 police officers as though it automatically resolves the political and economic concerns surrounding youth unemployment. The recruitment of 500 officers is undoubtedly welcome and necessary, particularly given the staffing shortages identified by LMPS. However, government must understand that these opportunities carry enormous social and political significance.
When nearly four out of every ten young people seeking work cannot find employment, public-sector recruitment becomes more than a human-resources exercise. It becomes part of the country’s social contract. The government itself has acknowledged the scale of this crisis. Approximately 145,087 young Basotho were reported as unemployed within the 15–35 age group, while youth unemployment was estimated at about 38.9% with young women facing even higher unemployment. In such an environment, recruitment into the police service must be transparent, credible and demonstrably merit-based. There should be no ambiguity regarding recruitment criteria. No perception that positions are reserved through political connections. No unexplained delays. No process that leaves young Basotho believing that employment in public institutions depends more on access to influential individuals than competence and qualification.
Indeed, the recruitment of 500 officers should be integrated into a broader Youth Employment and Security Sector Strategy. Government should recruit young people, but it should also develop career pathways for them. It should identify technical specializations within the police service, cyber crime, forensic investigation, intelligence analysis, financial crime, digital evidence, community policing and crime data analysis, and deliberately recruit and train young Basotho for the policing needs of the twenty-first century. That would turn recruitment from an emergency response into national capacity building.
The most important warning, however, is political. Youth unemployment is not merely an economic statistic. Prolonged unemployment produces frustration, exclusion and a growing belief that institutions are not designed for ordinary citizens. When young people repeatedly see opportunities postponed, when recruitment appears inaccessible and when those already employed appear to retain positions indefinitely, the danger is not simply economic disappointment. It is the erosion of trust. A country with large unemployed youth population cannot afford policies that appear indifferent to generational exclusion. Governments elsewhere have repeatedly learned that economic frustration, when combined with perceptions of unfairness and political exclusion, can rapidly become social unrest.
This is why our government must call the ministry and the police service to order, not because retaining experienced officers is inherently wrong, but because the government must ensure that retention does not become exclusion. Lesotho cannot declare youth unemployment a national disaster with one hand and, with the other, create systems that appear to delay the entry and advancement of young people. The proper approach is balance. Retain experience where genuinely necessary. But attach every retention contract to succession. Promote qualified junior officers. Recruit transparently. Expand opportunities for young Basotho. Transfer skills deliberately. Publish recruitment timelines and criteria. And ensure that every decision made by a public institution reflects the seriousness of the unemployment emergency declared by the government itself.
The Chief of Police may be correct that Lesotho needs experienced officers. But Lesotho also needs to remember something equally important: a police service cannot secure the future of a nation if its employment policies contribute to the hopelessness of the generation that constitutes that future. The recruitment of 500 officers is therefore an opportunity for the new Minister of Police to demonstrate a different approach, one that respects experience without sacrificing renewal, protects institutional capacity without blocking promotion, and recognizes that, in a country confronting approximately 38% youth unemployment, every public employment decision carries consequences far beyond the institution making it.
The message to government is clear: Youth unemployment has been declared a national disaster. Government policy must now behave as though we are indeed in an unemployment disaster. The Future is NOW!
Summary
- Equally, however, a government that has declared youth unemployment a national disaster cannot afford to make employment decisions that create the public perception that opportunities are being preserved for those already inside the system while thousands outside it continue waiting at the gates.
- The Chief of Police has further argued that the service requires approximately 9,000 to 10,000 officers and that even the recruitment of 500 new officers will not immediately close the existing staffing gap.
- For a graduate or unemployed young Mosotho from Ha Khohlopo hoping to join the police service, it may appear that government is extending employment for those already employed while telling young people to remain patient.
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