Sanctioning Apartheid - KORA

Sanctions against South Africa: Lesotho's Role
eqdy unlikely, gives some credence to the Lesotho story." It
is entidy possible that Lesotho's nafn-r simple repackaging
represented as manufactwing, maybe not even in Lesotho-will
be used for evasion purposes, but at this stage it is not posslble
to say anything 6rm.
One particular problem that will make detection harder, and
needs to be addressed, is the trade data recording system in
southern Ahica. South Africa reports the external trade of the
entire sACU region, and this is accepted by most gatherers of
international economic data Ce.g., the IMP, the World Bank). The
other countries in SACU do collect and publish their own trade
dabp including direction of trade data, but this data is not
perally available outside the region. Further, in the particular
case of Lesotho, the trade data collection process leaves a great
deal to be desired and the external trade statistics are several
years behind in publication (in early 1988,1983 was the last year
for which final data had been published). Lesotho's trade
statistics are therefore not going to be much help for detection of
evasion, and the lack of any data for Lesotho in both IMP and
OECD direction-of-trade statistical publications will make one
standard ~ qu~mparisons of X's reports of imports from
Y to Y's reports of exports to X-impossible in the Lesotho case.
Attitude of Lesotho Government
As noted above, the Lesotho government cannot be said to
be a homogeneous body with a single clear policy and ideology.
The best that can be said of it is probably h t it is extremely
pragmatic and, faced with enormous actual and potential
economic problems, concentrates on attempting to improve its
economic psition and reduce the danger of economic catas*
phe. Its dependence on South Africa for economic wellbeing is
enmu; not only now the employment of the migrant
rninew~ks~ but also the Highlands Water Scheme, a huge
project to reroute the headwaters of the Orange (in Lesotho,
Senqu) River system into the Vaal to sell water to South Africa
and genaate electricity for Lesotho. This prow is by far the
largest capital project ever to be undertaken in Lesotho, the South