Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters - November 23, 2004
Peter Apps

Although the small mountain kingdom is dependent on the giant next door, it has failed to reap any significant benefits from the relationship.

Gross domestic product per head in Lesotho is $611 a year compared to more than $3,500 in South Africa.

With poverty-stricken Lesotho in the grip of chronic food shortages and an HIV/AIDS rate of around 30 percent, some young people want to leave for South Africa.

"We should be under South Africa," said 21-year-old student Bokang Molulabwe. "Then we would have more advantages."

Opinions are divided.

"We are a sovereign country. People want to be independent. We are a monarchy and people want things to stay that way," said Ntsau Lekheto, a journalist on Public Eye, Lesotho's newest and fastest-growing newspaper.

Until a military coup bought in a government more sympathetic to apartheid South Africa, Lesotho was home to many African National Congress supporters and similar organizations.

"A lot of money came into the country from the ANC," said one aid worker. "But after 1994 (when white rule ended in South Africa) there was a feeling Lesotho was just abandoned."

South African brands dominate the main street in Lesotho's capital Maseru, and South African and western television and culture has growing dominance.

Even the ubiquitous traditional blankets that many of the locals wear are made across the border -- attempts to make them in Lesotho have not been economical.

SEARCH FOR JOBS

Many educated people in Lesotho have left to take jobs in South Africa where they are often better educated than blacks brought up under an apartheid system designed to ensure they could never compete with whites.

"Educated people do really want to leave for greener pastures in South Africa," said Lekhetho. "Everyone wants a South African ID to get employment."

For those who remain, many of the best paid jobs are working for the United Nations or international aid agencies.

While there has been a fall in the number employed in South Africa since the huge job cuts in the gold mining sector in the 1990s, many still cross the border looking for casual labor in construction or other industries.

Changes in South Africa have a profound impact on Lesotho. The currency, the maloti, is tied to the South African rand at a one to one exchange rate.

As the rand has strengthened against the U.S. dollar in recent months, Lesotho's Chinese-owned textile industry, which makes T-shirts and jeans for chains such as Gap and Timberland has become less competitive.

DESTINY TIED TO SOUTH AFRICA

"Economically speaking, Lesotho's destiny is tied to that of South Africa," said analyst Peter Kagwanja at the International Crisis Group think tank. "Lesotho has much to gain from South Africa but South Africa doesn't need it in the same way."

Some of Lesotho's problems are worse than those in South Africa. Aid workers said some aid has been suspended after it was found that officials could account for only 60 percent of budget expenditure.

Officials say that even in a good year, Lesotho produces only 30 percent of its food requirements and the rest is imported mainly from South Africa. The country's HIV/AIDS rate is also notably higher than its neighbor, although the government has been praised as being more open in tackling it.

In other areas, some locals say they feel they may be doing better than South Africa. While millions in South Africa's informal settlements and shanty towns live in flimsy corrugated iron shacks, most in Lesotho have access to proper housing.

Village farmers say they fear closer links with their larger neighbor might lead to western style land ownership in contrast to the current system, in which most land is commonly held for subsistence agriculture.

In recent years, Lesotho has introduced free primary school education, viewed by many as the country's most striking recent achievement, but some aid workers say this means little.

"So we have people who have no work, no food and are dying of AIDS," said one jaded development worker.

"But now they can read. What's the point?"

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