“This report presents the findings of a study of the effectiveness as a democracy watchdog of the Office of the Ombudsman in Lesotho. The researcher asked the first category of respondents to reflect on issues
relating to the collaboration, or lack thereof, between these democracy protection institutions, while the latter was requested to assess the performance of the Ombudsman in his five mandated areas: combating
maladministration, dealing with injustice in the public service, protection of human rights and freedoms, fighting corruption, and environmental protection.The study finds that the office has been effective in the first three areas and less so in the last two. This is attributable largely to severe resource constraints and a complete lack of autonomy in terms of control over the budget voted for the office by Parliament and the powers of the office to recruit its own staff. Thus, in this regard, the office is effectively just another department of government.”
