FRAYING AT THE SEAMS
Lesotho’s textiles sector — the biggest employer after government — has been gutted by the pandemic. Women workers are bearing the brunt of the hardship
Mpho Mohale* is a single mother of four in Lesotho’s capital, Maseru. Last month, she found herself out of work when apparel manufacturer C&Y Garments shut down — one of the many casualties of Covid in the mountain kingdom.
“My retrenchment was a devastating blow for me as I am the breadwinner of the family,” the 40-year-old widow tells the FM. “Following my retrenchment, I tried selling fruits on the streets of Maseru but business was not good due to tough competition. I would sometimes take home a paltry R20 per day.”
Mohale is one of 2,700 workers left jobless by the closure of C&Y Garments, a subsidiary of the Taiwanese-owned Nien Hsing Textile Group. All told, the group has shed almost 7,000 jobs at its Lesotho subsidiaries — 5,500 in the past 12 months alone — equivalent to 70% of its workforce.
“We have just experienced the worst year since we started operating in Lesotho more than two decades ago,” group GM Ricky Chang tells the FM. Though there had been some recovery in the market, “the emergence of the Omicron variant poses a new challenge for the textiles industry. It is therefore hard to predict what 2022 holds in store.”
Lesotho’s textiles sector is reeling from its worst job cuts, with one-quarter of its 45,000-strong workforce being retrenched between March 2020 and the end of last year. It’s a huge blow for the country: the sector is the second-largest formal employer after the government, according to a 2019 UN Development Programme report, contributing 16.4% of all jobs in the formal sector.
The job cuts are likely to worsen socioeconomic hardship in the country, where nearly half the 2.1-million population lives in poverty, and unemployment is at 22.5%, according to the Bureau of Statistics.
Importantly, the retrenchments will reverse the gains that have been made in women’s empowerment, says National Clothing, Textile & Allied Workers Union secretary-general Sam Mokhele. Two decades after the sector opened up, women constitute about 80% of the textiles workforce. It means the many women-headed households in the country will be hit hard, says Mokhele.
“Without the garment industry, the economy will just break down,” he says, pointing to the sector’s roughly 14% contribution to GDP. “The factories employ mostly women whose families will not have anything to eat.”
On the whole, the job losses have been attributed to the Covid-induced slowdown in economic activity, and reduced demand for goods. But Covid isn’t solely to blame — it’s simply worsened an existing problem.
In focusing exclusively on textile exports, Lesotho has failed to take advantage of other opportunities to develop and export products under the preferential terms of the US African Growth Opportunities Act (Agoa), says Tlohang Letsie, a senior political science lecturer at the National University of Lesotho.
Under Agoa, qualifying countries may export more than 6,000 products to the US duty free. Though the department of trade & industry has identified other products that could be developed for export — including rosehip and other medicinal herbs, dried fruit, bottled water, and leather products and handicrafts — the government has so far failed to diversify its offering.
“Our leaders are not progressive,” Letsie says. “If they were progressive, they would have long [ago] ensured that Lesotho takes advantage of more Agoa product lines. They abdicated their duty by putting the proverbial eggs in one basket. Surely we cannot continue relying on textiles only for Agoa exports and expect everything to work out.”
The job losses are likely to continue unless the government comes up with an effective plan not just to diversify the economy, but also to empower entrepreneurs in fields outside the traditional areas of employment. In addition, it needs to explore markets beyond its traditional trading partners, SA and the US, which account for 83.6% and 12.5% of its trade respectively, according to statistics bureau estimates.
Social justice advocate Mpho Letima, founder of the Gender Entrepreneurship & Media Institute, tells the FM Lesotho will
continue to face challenges until women are empowered to create their own jobs and run their own factories. As long as there is no local ownership in factories, and the variety of goods produced is not widened, the country’s economy — and its people — will remain vulnerable, Letima says.
“I encourage the retrenched women to come together and start income-generating projects. It does not matter starting small; what is important is that they are self-reliant. Retrenchments are not new — we have been here before and we must look for permanent solutions and change our story.”
Former trade & industry principal secretary Majakathata Mokoena-Thakhisi also highlights the importance of local ownership.
“It is unfortunate that the government does not have a say in the textile factories. I am sure if the factories were locally owned, the government would be in a better position to negotiate deals that would ensure that Basotho do not lose their jobs,” he says.
“The government was supposed to buy shares in the factories a long time ago,” he adds — but little seems to have come of this.
Approached for comment, trade & industry minister Thabiso Molapo referred questions to the Lesotho National Development Corp (LNDC). Its spokesperson, Tiisetso Moremoholo, in turn referred the FM to a statement issued in August that said the LNDC was “troubled by the downscaling of operations by key players, which has resulted in considerable job losses. In an endeavour to save these jobs, the corporation has engaged the companies that have downsized their operations through sizeable layoffs.”
It’s working to improve the investment environment, and “wishes to assure workers and the public that it is exploring all avenues to preserve and create new jobs for those who have been retrenched, through operationalising expansion projects in its pipeline”.
In part, that is likely to include completion of the Ha Belo Industrial Estate in the ButhaButhe district, and phase 3 of the Tikoe development in Maseru. Both projects involve the construction of factory shells, which the LNDC expects will be occupied by textile and other manufacturing companies. But given low demand from Lesotho’s traditional markets, it remains to be seen if these will simply become white elephants.
As for the beleaguered workers, the government did provide some relief when factories were temporarily shuttered to comply with lockdown regulations in 2020: a payment of R800 a month from June to August of that year. Now, with companies permanently closed, retrenched workers are having to find income elsewhere, including in SA, says Mohaneng Mokaoane, secretary-general of the Lentsoe La Sechaba Workers Union.
“The retrenched workers are being forced to cross into SA to look for work without work permits,” Mokaoane says. “Working as an illegal migrant is tough because employers tend to exploit them … they will not even report exploitation for fear of being caught out and deported back to Lesotho.”
Mohale may well be one such worker. Unable to make ends meet from her vending business, she’s considering trying her luck in SA. “I don’t have a work permit,” she says. “I will have to go there illegally.”
* Not her real name